Piñatas and product placement

Having a 6 year old means going to lots of birthday parties. We've (or various percentages of the family) been to several recently and it is interesting to compare the features of different ones. Ellyn's palette of friends is pretty diverse given that her school is populated by people from a variety of embassies as well as local Hondurans. So far we have been to parties hosted by United Statesians, Canadians, and Hondurans. 

Today's party was for one of her closer friends from school and neighborhood and had a few of its own distinctive features. It offered us a variety of ways to, let's say, "appreciate" cultural differences.

There was a clown, games, music (not too loud, actually). Both Debbie and Ellyn got roped into games for which they did not understand the rapidly issued instructions. 

After the obligatory bludgeoning and dismemberment of a cherished cartoon character (a Lalaloopsy doll in this case) and the concomitant scurry for candy, things proceeded to cake. This was one of the odder moments. The assembled guests--native Spanish speakers to the last one (present family not included)--began to sing "Happy Birthday to you." So what? you say. But they were actually singing it in English, that is heavily accented English. As it turned out, because she hadn't caught what was going on, the only person singing in Spanish--"Feliz cumpleaños a ti!"--was Debbie. It...they...what?!

Then the choir launched into the second verse: "Ya queremos pastel..." which means "Now we want some cake..." Added to the end of this was a brief refrain "Y un Coca-cola." I can only imagine that the people at Coca Cola would be thrilled to find their name so naturally associated with the most oft repeated song in the world.