I flew back to Honduras on December 30th after promising the boys for months I would be here to celebrate NYE with them. Christmas is definitely their biggest celebration of the holiday season, but the 31st is a pretty big night as well.
Hondurans celebrate it pretty similar in many ways - staying up late, fireworks at midnight, getting dressed up, etc - but some are SUPER different and confusing.
For example several days after Christmas Hondurans make scarecrow-like dummies to look like an old man and woman. These dummies are supposed to signify the past year, so naturally (?), at midnight you burn these dummies to mean you are "getting rid of the old, and getting ready for the new". We had our past summer interns down on NYE, and we all decided it seems like the weirdest tradition, but the kids seem to get pretty excited about it. You literally fill the dummies with fireworks and then light them on fire so they "blow up". As you can see from the pictures, it almost looked like we were burning people alive.... no worries - nothing of the sort!
We had a delicious dinner of pollo relleno (stuffed chicken) with rice and tortillas. After dinner the boys took turns singing karaoke, doing skits, and telling jokes as a sort of "show". We played music and danced until late, then around midnight it was time to shoot fireworks and "burn the viejo and vieja".
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