Las Mañanitas
by Fidelis Et Espoire A Noel Dy
Chapter 1:
La Quinceañera
In the years of childhood to the years of a budding teenager, little girls of Mexican heritage often dream of having a quinceañera, or quince for short. Taking place on the girl's fifteenth birthday, the ceremony is traditional rite of passage from being a girl to becoming a woman. In modern days, it is a huge party attended by hundreds of people including the quinceañera, the name for the birthday girl, and her family and friends. But originally, the ceremony starts off with a mass to start and the celebration afterwards. It is here that a girl shares a special dance with her father, is accepted as a woman by society, and by tradition this is where her family allows her to start to date. Where she is finally allowed to take a chance on love.
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Isabella Garcia-Shapiro gazed at herself in the mirror, the dress was absolutely stunning. A traditional white-colored gown that was a beautiful strapless A-line, it's full skirt gently grazed the floor as she turned 360° to inspect it in the mirror. The beadwork and embroidery on the bodice was beautiful, the way the skirts roushed was amazing.
But something was missing, she tapped her chin in thought. Clink!The drop of a needle from the dressmakers table onto the floor woke her out of her train of thought and an idea popped in her head and she said to the young dressmaker who was watching her, "Ms. Nowelle, do you have any large ribbons?"
The lady nodded, "Yes. You would like to see them?"
"Yes, please."
"Fine, just give me a second Miss."
The lady stood up and left the room, closing the door behind her. Isabella turned to her mother, she noticed her mother's eyes were glistening, "Mom are you okay?"
Mrs. Garcia-Shapiro looked at her with a smile and said, "I can't believe my little Isa is growing up, look at you about to become a woman and only a few years from college, it was just yesterday that you came home with me and your father from the Danville hospital."
Isabella felt a pang of sadness thinking of her deceased father, who wouldn't be with her, and though she had only known him for a few years, he had managed to be a big impact in her life, and whatever else she wanted to know about him, her mother was always ready to tell. Besides with this big event coming up there was no way she could forget about him, but Isabella decided that this wasn't the time to think over it again because she remembered that he used to always tell her to seize each day, live each as if it was her last. "Because," he had said, "life goes too fast for you to let it pass you by." Carpe Diem a very good friend had told her.
So Isabella put on a smile and said to her mother, "Mom, come on we already went over this when I became a 'woman,'" she used finger quotes when she said the last word, "two years ago at my Bat Mitzvah. Do we really need to go over it again."
Mrs. Shapiro smiled, "Yes, yes we do, you're only going to be a child for so long."
Isabella smiled back, "And that's why I love you." She went over to where her mom was sitting on the side of the room and gave her a hug.
There was a knock on the door. "Come in," Isabella called out.
Ms. Nowelle opened the door and came in with a large basket that was filled with multiple satin and silk ribbons, short and small, some glittery, and some even multicolored. Isabella pawed through it looking for a certain color.
"Ahhhh...Here we go," she exclaimed pulling out a long ribbon that was a few inches wide, it contained a shade of pink that was the same exact color as the ribbon in her hairbun. As she had grown older she had started changing her hairstyle a bit and found that she preferred to where it up in her many time busy and adventurous life beauce after all when you're being chased by angry pandas in the middle of China with your friends, getting slowed down because you can't see is not at all helpful .
She started to hold out the ends of the ribbon in front of her, putting her arms apart, each of the ends in a separate hand. Realizing what she was doing, Ms. Nowelle grabbed the ribbon from Isabella and wrapped it around the waist of the dress, tying it in a bow in he back.
"Perfect!" Isabella said with a satisfied smile, "What do you think Mom?"
Her mother nodded in approval and said, "Nice to know that fashion design badge didn't go to waste."
"Once a Fireside girl, always a Fireside girl," Isabella quipped, and it was true. Even through the years, the original Fireside girls had remained intact, even when they started high school and the introduced to the drama that came with it they still remained friends.
Mrs. Garcia-Shapiro smiled at her duaghter and with the look of a loving mother softly said, "Mi hija, You will certainly be the most beauful quinceañera."
A/N: Okay so I have never written for this archive before, but I have writer's block and hopefully this story will pull me out of it. This story actually started when I was looking at pictues by my favorite artist on devianart, then I clicked someone else's favorites file and I found this picture of an older Isabella and Phineas, and when I saw Isabella in her dress in the picture, this story was born into my head. The info from this story is basically all I have been taught about quinceañera, I come from a huge Mexican family on my father's side, where every girl has(or will have) a big traditional quince, so I am used to the process. Ironically I don't speak Spanish though(I am learning it), but only French & English, so you won't see much Spanish in the story.
So please review because I would really like to know what you all think of this story.
Fidelis Et Espoire A Noel Dy
PS-To all my readers for my other story, I am trying to work on it, but some things happened and now I have writer's block, that story will be finished as I do have the layout set-up, but the words are not coming to me.