Burning the Old Year: A Meaningful Latin American New Year Tradition

Across many Latin American countries, the New Year is welcomed not only with celebrations and fireworks, but with a powerful symbolic ritual: burning the Old Year.

This tradition, known as El Año Viejo, is a beautiful way of saying goodbye to what has passed and making space for new beginnings. It combines culture, reflection, humour, and family connection—making it especially meaningful when shared with children.

What Is El Año Viejo?

El Año Viejo is usually represented by a handmade figure or doll, created using old clothes, cardboard, paper, or straw. The figure symbolises the year that is ending, carrying with it everything the year brought: joyful moments, challenges, lessons, and memories.

Burning the Old Year is not about destruction—it is about closure, transformation, and renewal.

Countries Where the Old Year Is Burned

Ecuador
This is one of the countries where the tradition is most widely celebrated. Families and communities create large Old Year figures, sometimes inspired by public figures or characters from the year. Before burning them, people often read humorous “wills” where the Old Year leaves messages behind.

Colombia
In many regions, the Old Year is burned as a family ritual. Children often take part in dressing the figure and talking about what they want to leave behind and what they hope for in the year ahead.

Venezuela
Here, the burning of the Old Year symbolises emotional cleansing and hope. It is often combined with gratitude rituals and wishes for health, peace, and prosperity.

Peru and other Andean countries
The tradition appears in different forms and is sometimes connected to ancestral rituals, where fire represents transformation, renewal, and rebirth.

Why This Tradition Is Educational for Children

The Old Year tradition offers powerful learning opportunities for children:

• It helps them talk about emotions and experiences

• It teaches them about time, cycles, and change

• It reinforces the idea that mistakes are part of learning

• It strengthens family bonds through shared reflection

• It passes on cultural identity and traditions

It turns New Year’s Eve into more than a celebration—it becomes a moment of meaning.

Celebrating the Old Year with Children Today

Many families now adapt the tradition in safe and symbolic ways, especially outside Latin America. Children might draw what they want to let go of, write wishes for the new year, or take part in guided reflection activities at home.

What matters most is not the fire, but the intention behind the ritual.

Celebrate the Old Year as a Family

If you would like to experience this tradition with your children in a safe, meaningful, and educational way, we have created a New Year’s Old Year Kit designed especially for families.

The kit helps children:

• Reflect on the year that is ending

• Express emotions creatively

• Learn about Latin American culture

• Create a beautiful family ritual

👉 Discover our Old Year Kit and turn New Year’s Eve into a moment of connection, reflection, and tradition.

Because teaching culture is also teaching children how to close cycles and begin again 🤍

We’ve partnered with this talented Culture Prometer in the UK - PENSART that distributes this beautiful mini Año Viejo figures. If you’d like to get one, contact them here: Click here to send them a message