Yellow Pants, Grapes and Triqui Traquis - Venezuelan New Year

Venezuelans have been stocking up on yellow underwear, sparkling wine and grapes in the last few days, in the traditional build up to the celebration of New Year's Eve, or Fin de Año.

The locals love to welcome in the New Year with a massive bang so sales of fireworks or "triqui-traquis" have also been brisk - especially the annoying little firecrackers called "fosforitos", the bigger "empanaditas" and the fearsome rockets with names like "Matasuegra" ("Mother-in-Law Killer") and "Tumba Rancho" ("Shanty Destroyer").

As in many other places in the Spanish-speaking world, New Year traditions in Venezuela involve various ways of saying goodbye to the old year and welcoming the new one in a way that will bring good luck, good health, love and prosperity.

Yellow pants are worn to bring luck and money (they are the colour of gold after all), and red pants are believed to improve your chances at finding love and romance.

Make sure to wear the pants under your clothes, as you would normally.

At my first Venezuelan New Year's Eve party, I made the mistake of pulling over my jeans a pair of canary-yellow bikini briefs I'd been given for the occassion by a well-meaning friend.

While it was funny for about two minutes to strut about like a skinny superhero, it did look a bit wrong on the dancefloor, and if it hadn't been for the gallons of Black Label whiskey and Polar Ice beer we'd been drinking all evening I would have felt a bit self conscious when we went house to house to share a drink with the neighbours.

Some kids in the street even thought it was hilarious to shoot little bottle rockets at me while shouting "mira, aqui viene el supermancito" ("look, here comes the little Superman"), lighting the rockets while holding the sticks in their hands and then firing them straight down the street at my distinctive New Year attire.

Luckily, nobody got burnt, but I did feel a bit confused when I woke up the next day on the sofa with a sore head and these strange pants strangling my nether regions. Even if they'd been bright scarlet I cannot see how they could have brought me any luck in the romance department.

Another popular New Year's custom is to wear new clothes for the first time - known as "estrenos" (just as a new film has its "estreno", its premiere) - again to bring good luck and prosperity.

Generally, New Year's Eve parties follow the same pattern as Christmas Eve, with festive music such as gaitas - classics like "Viejo Año" by Maracaibo 15 or Nestor Zavarce's New Year tearjerker "Faltan Cinco Pa' Las Doce" - and the usual salsa vieja and reggaeton party favourites followed by a meal of yuletide foods such as pan de jamon, hallacas, ensalada de gallina, pernil and drinks like ponche crema.

As the countdown begins to the magic midnight hour guests quickly grab their 12 grapes and a glass of sparkling wine or champagne and try to gobble down a grape for each of the 12 chimes, known as the "12 campanas".

As each grape represents a good month in the year to come you can imagine the rush to get them down.

Any remaining grapes are usually washed down with champagne as the last chime of midnight ends, which is the cue for "los cañonazos" - the deafening fireworks displays that mark the start of the New Year.

This is also time for New Year hugs and kisses, generally to the sound of a traditional New Year song like "Año Nuevo, Vida Nueva" ("New Year, New Life") by Billo's Caracas Boys.

Few traditions are as dramatic as the annual burning of the "Old Year" in the Andean states of Merida, and Tachira, where papier mache figures representing the problems of the old year are paraded through the streets before being burnt at midnight to the sound of gaita music and the deafening explosions of thousands of triqui-traquis.

So now you know what to do to have an authentic Venezuelan New Year's Eve party. Grab some grapes, slip into your best yellow pants and have a fantastic New Year.

Paz, amor y prosperidad and a Feliz Año Nuevo pa' to' mi gente!

Venezuelan legend Nestor Zavarce has died

Venezuelan singer and composer Nestor Zavarce passed away on Friday, 27 August. He was 74. Although he had not performed in public since 1974, his song "Faltan 5 pa’ las 12" has become such a Yuletide classic that no Venezuelan celebrations would be complete without his deep voice and the sound of the bells counting down to the New Year.

Zavarce was born in Jadacaquiva on the Paraguaná Peninsula in Falcón State on 9 April 1936, but before he celebrated his first birthday the family moved to Caracas.

He started his artistic career at the age of 12 when he secured the part of the young boy in the Venezuelan movie "La Balandra Isabel Llego Esta Tarde" in 1949 and went on to appear in more than 20 films and 30 telenovelas.

The song playing on the video is his first major hit, "El Pajaro Chogui", which sold over 1 million copies when it was released in the 1960s.

Nestor Zavarce: Faltan Cinco Pa' Las Doce

The ultimate New Year tearjerker, Nestor Zavarce's nostalgic sixties song "Faltan Cinco Pa Las Doce" ("Five Minutes to Twelve") has become a hugely popular Latin American classic, with salsa versions played in Puerto Rico, cumbia and vallenato versions in Colombia and even a merengue version in the Dominican Republic.

In Venezuela, the song is as much a New Year tradition as the 12 grapes that are eaten at the stroke of midnight.

Zavarce was a popular big screen and soap opera actor who got his big break as a child star in "La Balandra Isabel Llego Esta Tarde", a joint Argentine-Venezuelan production that won the award for best photography at the the 1950 Cannes Film Festival.

The song was very nearly never recorded. Zavarce had had a major Latin American hit with the song "El Pajaro Chogüi", selling over a million records, and his record company wanted a Christmas album to follow it called 'El Gallo Pelón'.

Zavarce, who retired from show business in 1974 and from public life in 1984, said in a rare interview that the songwriter Oswaldo Oropeza asked him to include 'Faltan Cinco Pa´ Las Doce' on the disc to fill up space.

"We recorded it and to our surprise it was as big a hit as 'El Pájaro Chogüi except that copies of this song carried on selling and keep on selling. Even in Japan they want it," he said.

By the time this song comes on tonight I hope to be full of good cheer, good beer, two or three glasses of ponche crema and a few hallacas.

Faltan cinco pa’ las doce
Las campanas de la iglesia están sonando
anunciando que el año viejo se va.
La alegría del año nuevo viene ya
los abrazos se confunden sin cesar. (x2)

Faltan cinco pa’ las doce
el año va a terminar
me voy corriendo a mi casa
a abrazar a mi mamá. (x2)

Me perdonan que me vaya de la fiesta
pero hay algo que jamás podré dejar.
Una linda viejecita que me espera,
en las noches de una eterna navidad.

Faltan cinco pa’ las doce
el año va a terminar
me voy corriendo a mi casa
a abrazar a mi mamá. (x2)

Las campanas de la iglesia están sonando
anunciando que el año viejo se va.
La alegría del año nuevo viene ya
los abrazos se confunden sin cesar. (x2)


Now eat those grapes! Feliz Año Nuevo !!!