Art by: rino99

To celebrate the new year I want to share a bite of culture and tradition from my homeland

Since the 1890s in Ecuador, the New Year hasn't been celebrated as much as the Old Year-Año viejo, with a kind of funeral celebration featuring a doll stuffed with newspaper (named viejos or monigotes) representing the past year, but with joyful dancing and singing. For some reason, men dressed as women with masks to represent the "widows" of the passed year. Over time, the funeral celebrations were abandoned, and the Viejos was simply burned at midnight on the 31st. The "widows" are uncomfortably flirtatious (at least for an antisocial person like me; I literally have to carry a can of carnival foam in my pocket to mandarlos a la verga). Another interesting thing is that since October 31st is Shield Day-Dia del escudo (celebrating the national symbol, the beautiful shield on the flag), we don't celebrate Halloween. So, we take advantage of December 31st to dress up as anything, making it our pseudo-Halloween.