El Año Nuevo

If there were a lot of fireworks for Christmas than you can probably guess what New Years is like. It is much more of family event than in the US, but just about everything here has more of a family aspect to it. There was lots more food and family all night, very similar to Christmas in fact. One tradition down here is that you make an effigy (I think that’s right) a big lifelike version of a person in clothes, stuffed with sawdust and fireworks that you burn at midnight in the streets. I think usually it is supposed to represent someone in your family that has passed away in the last year, but almost all houses do it. It’s pretty creepy because in the days leading up to New Year’s you will find people sitting along the street, or against a house, only to find out that they are fake, kind of like scarecrows.