NEW YEAR'S FIESTAS
At New Year's fiestas, vendors gather on plazas to offer handcrafted items such as
pottery, woven baskets, and good luck charms for the New Year. Balloon artists are
especially popular at New Year's fiestas. They make all kinds of fantastic people and
animals by twisting together balloons of different shapes and sizes. The balloon artists
are colorful additions to the fiestas as they stroll along holding dozens of balloon
creations that dance on strings high over the heads of the crowd.
In Mexico, as in countries all over the world, New Year's Eve is a time to think back
over the past and to try to look forward into the future. In Mitla, in the state of Oaxaca,
Zapotec Indians celebrate New Year's Eve, which they call "Wishing Night," with
bonfires. They keep all-night vigils around the bonfires.
Some Mexican families still keep the old Spanish custom of eating twelve grapes or
twelve raisins on the twelve strokes of midnight for good luck in each of the twelve
months to come. In Mexico's cities, towns, and villages, as midnight strikes on New
Year's Eve, whistles, horns, church bells, and fireworks explosions welcome in the New
Year.
In some parts of Mexico, an unusual and amusing dance is performed on New Year's
Day. The Danza de Los Viejitos (Dance of the Little Old Men) is one of the oldest
dances in the country. Young men are made up to look like wrinkled, toothless old men.
They hobble out on sticks and stumble around as if they can hardly move.
Suddenly, they straighten up and leap and jump around full of pep. But after a few
minutes, the dancers collapse and become weak old men-until another spurt of energy
strikes them. The audience screams with laughter as they again collapse and rub their
aching backs and finally hobble off the dance floor.