El Año Viejo

It’s a tradition here to celebrate the New Year by remembering the old year. And by remembering the old year, I mean, of course, taking a bunch of old and tattered clothes, making a scare-crow-like muñeca with them, filling the doll with fireworks and dousing it in gasoline, and setting that “old year” on fire and rejoicing in its destruction like a much hated effigy. While I unfortunately missed this particular tradition (I was up north on Roatan with my family (a little too ritzy for flaming dolls)), I saw footage of it later, and I can assure you that this is one piece of culture which I will definitely try to bring back with me and integrate into the American celebration of the New Year.