New Year’s Eve in Ecuador

On this blog, above all, it’s more about the New Year’s Eve tradition in Ecuador than food. At this time, we eat roasted turkey, pork, or barbecue—similar to the Christmas posted in my last blog: Christmas traditions and food in Ecuador.

Hence, if you want to know more about the authentic Ecuadorian tradition, you should come on New Year’s Eve in Ecuador. It is the old puppet and we burn it at 12am. Actually, we call Año Viejo (old year) or monigote, which represents the misfortunes of the past year.

The celebration starts in the morning. Families and friends gather together in a house to build a puppet filled with newspaper, sawdust, or cardboard. Furthermore, the puppet is dressed in old clothes that belonged to a family and its face is covered with a mask made with cardboard, glue, and newspaper.

In some parts of the street, people sell the old puppets (monigote). You have the option to buy it or make it. The monigote particularly looks like a local, a politician, a cartoon character, or any famous superhero.

New Year’s Eve in Ecuador

The best part is that the men dress as women (drag) with very short skirts, wigs, and face paint. We call them viudas (widows). The Viudas dance on the street of the house, stop the cars, act as a woman, ask for some pennies from the drivers, and show them the old puppet and dance. The rest of the family gets to put on a costume and dance as well. The money that the widow gets is used to give the children of the family or to buy beer.

After all, at midnight, we burn the old puppet. It means all the bad things that happened this year go away, and there will be a new good life in the New Year. Some people jump over the fire for good luck.

During the day, one or two people write a will – testament, which means the Ano Viejo has written a testament to the family. The testament must be written with lyrics, satire, rhyming poems, and humor. The will mentions events that happened in the old year.

New Year’s Eve in Ecuador

If you come at this time of the year, you will hear some words:

Viuda: Widows—men dressed in drag

Monigoto o Ano Viejo: Old puppet bought or made

Caridad: Ask for payment to burn the puppet.

Disfraz: Costume

Quema de Ano Viejo: set fire to the puppet

Testamento: Will left it by the Ano Viejo

Other traditions we do:

• Eating 12 grapes at 12 a.m. denotes a prosperous life.

• Take a suitcase and run around the block of the house: It means traveling in the New Year.

• Fireworks