Burning the old year away

New Years at the beach....On New Year's eve, many cultures are looking ahead and making resolutions for the upcoming year; however, Ecuadorians are focused on Ano Viejo, the old year. Families make parpermachet dolls representing the old year, tucking firecrackers into the newspaper stuffing. Each person writes on a small piece of paper one wrongdoing or bad thing from the past year that they think MUST be left behind. The paper testaments are then folded up and stuffed into the doll to be burned away, ensuring that the old year's mistakes go up in smoke.

At the stroke of midnight, we set fire to our papermachet cuy celebrating Rebeccas´s birthday and buringing our old year away

toasting with pink champagne

yep, the smerf went up in flames too

rebecca, me, sam and chris

vogue

sammy and me

Cheers to 2010!