Celebrating the new year!

I'll be honest, for a few years now I've not really celebrated New Year's Eve. It started to seem a little silly trying to pass the time till midnight, so you could wish everyone a happy new year, and then wrap the party up so you can get some sleep. Actually if I'm being completely honest, I've not even attended a New Years party for the last 2 or 3 years. I've opted to get a movie or two, some finger food and just spend a quiet night at home. I had my reasons of course, but this past New Year's Eve may change how I spend any future December 31 evenings :)

I'm not even sure how to start telling you about all this fun. I'm not sure I can do justice to how great of an experience it was!

The party started about 7pm and about 30 members of the church came over, a lot of them showing up with masks or wigs. 

We played games, chatted and just enjoyed each other's company until around 10pm when we sat down for supper. Chicken legs, rice, potatoes and vegetables. 

And a multitude of cakes and desserts.

Then around 11:30 someone dresses up and reads a 'will' for everyone. It is written like a poem and has a sentence or two about each person or family at the party. 

Then they head out into the street to burn the 'old men'. These are paper mâché figures or clothes stuffed with sawdust or newspaper made to look like certain people. By burning these old men, they hope all the troubles of the past year will go away and they will be blessed in the new year. They also had sparklers and firecrackers and some people light Chinese lanterns, it's beautiful to watch them go up into the sky.

Out in the street you will also see people running around the block carrying empty suitcases. This means they hope to be able to travel in the new year. Another superstition is that if you wear yellow undergarments you will gain wealth in the coming year. 

It was such a different experience than New Years in Canada, but I thoroughly loved it!! I suppose having a warmer climate helps, I can't imagine being outside in the street for 45 minutes on New Year's Eve in Canada.