Cuchumbo is an everyday word in Central America. It usually names an object you put something into, to shake it or to keep it, and in Honduras it also names the December custom of drawing names to decide who gives a gift to whom. This site takes its name from that last meaning.
What the word means
The dice cup
The Diccionario de americanismos, published by the Association of Spanish Language Academies, records cuchumbo as the cup used to throw dice in Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Honduras. By extension, the word also names the dice game itself.
The gourd container
In Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua, a cuchumbo is also a hollowed-out gourd used to carry water. In Guatemala the name goes to a container made from the bottom half of a gourd, used to keep tortillas.
The gift exchange
The same dictionary records a meaning specific to Honduras: a gift exchange among friends or coworkers, with names drawn beforehand.
It is what other countries call Secret Santa, amigo secreto or amigo invisible. The link to the dice cup is easy to see: the names get shaken up and each person draws one that nobody else sees.
How to say it and use it
Say it koo-CHOOM-bo, with the stress on the middle syllable. It's an ordinary noun: “we're doing a cuchumbo at the office this year”. If your group calls it Secret Santa, it's the same game.
Run your cuchumbo online
Create the exchange, type in the names and Cuchumbo runs the draw. It's free, nobody needs an account, and each person sees only the name they drew, the organizer included.
