Up In Flames

It's that time of year again in Santa Fe - the Friday before Labor Day. It's the night that Old Man Gloom, Zozobra, gets set on fire and the 50 foot tall marionette, stuffed with gloomy thoughts, is burned up.

Fire and smoke as a previous Zozobra burned

Sad thoughts, bad thoughts, dreary fears and bitter disappointments are all written down on scraps of paper, stuffed in the giant puppet ahead of time, and then sent up in smoke and flames to disappear into the night as Zozobra burns in a great spectacle.

It's a giant festival at a local park in town, drawing huge crowds every year.

The crowds are too much for us, although the event is tightly controlled, parking and buses and bikes are plentiful and security is good. The Santa Fe Kiwanis run it.

The crowd at Ft. Marcy Park for a previous year's Zozobra festival

But we don't go, because it's such a zoo. We do write down our disappointments and take them to where Zozobra is displayed the week before so they can be stuffed inside. I want my gloomiest thoughts to be burned to ashes.

This year the readers of this blog can send their disappointments up in flames too. Just fill out this scrap of paper with your awful thoughts, fold it, and put it in an envelope addressed to Old Man Zozobra, Santa Fe, NM.

Write your bad thoughts here and mail it in

You can also mail in your divorce papers, eviction notices, news articles you disagree with, and failing report cards. You can send in your tax bills, but pay them first.

Then check the website here after the event to see how it all went. There will be flames.

before Burning Man was even a thing . . .

Here is Zozobra Friday afternoon before he got the torch:

2019's effigy at the park before the event