New Year's Traditions Form Around the World

By Ellen Samsell Salas

 

Ringing in the new year is the final hurrah to the holiday season. It’s an evening of crazy hats, noisemakers, colorful confetti, exploding fireworks, the sipping of champagne, the kissing of sweethearts at midnight, and the singing of “Auld Lang Syne,” as we reflect on the past year.

In other parts of the world, furniture and frozen lakes, clothes and confections, parades and potatoes all play roles in New Year’s traditions. Whether the custom involves sleeping on mistletoe (as folks do in Ireland) or gathering in cemeteries (as people do in Chile), the desired outcome is universal: Send the past year’s trials and tribulations on their way and welcome good health, happiness, and prosperity.

 

Getting the Home Front Ready

Prepping one’s home for the new year is important in many cultures. In Latin American countries, cleaning the house is believed to drive away the past year’s
bad spirits.

• Mexicans throw water out of windows and open the front door to hasten the departure of the old.
• The Irish clean not only their homes but also their cars and gardens, and they throw bread to chase away evil. For emphasis, they might beat loaves of bread on the walls.
• Not content to simply clean, Italians and South Africans fling all manner of items — from clothes to furniture to appliances — out their windows to drive away evil spirits.

 

Doors, porches, and entranceways also appear in New Year’s rituals.

• In Scotland, the Hogmanay tradition holds that luck will flourish if the “first footer” is a handsome, dark-haired man bearing gifts of coal, salt, shortbread, a black bun, and at least a dram of whiskey, while entering to the accompaniment of bagpipes and drums.
• In Denmark, smashing plates on neighbors’ doorsteps is believed to bring good luck. The more broken plates littering one’s doorstep, the better!

 

Sweet, Salty, and Savory Treats

Other celebrations involve sweet, salty, and savory food items to bring peace or luck into the new year.

• The Greeks hang onions on their front doors.
• The Turkish sprinkle salt on their doorsteps.
• The Swiss welcome dollops of whipped cream falling on the floor.
• Puerto Ricans sprinkle sugar outside of the home.

 

Champagne isn’t the only thing that people ingest to ring in the new year.

• In Brazil and other Latin American countries, eating seven seeds of a pomegranate, the fruit of Persephone the Greek goddess of springtime and fertility, is believed to bring renewal.
• In Spain, Mexico, and the Philippines, eating 12 grapes or any other round fruit at the stroke of midnight is thought to bring luck.
• January 1, the culminating evening of Kwanzaa, combines both feasting and the exchange of home-crafted gifts in a celebration of family and friends.

 

While those of us who live in the southern U.S. might enjoy a hearty bowl of black-eyed peas and collard greens to bring luck and wealth in the new year, New Year’s treats in the Netherlands and Germany include sweet “krapfen” (filled doughnuts), or their cousin, deep-fried dough. Armenians hasten the coming of good fortune by making special bread and “kneading” luck into the dough. For those seeking longevity, slurping Japanese soba noodles might be the preferred culinary adventure. And for those seeking wealth, the Brazilian midnight snack of lentils might be the ticket, but in India and Pakistan, eating rice promises prosperity.

 

Perhaps the oddest food tradition hails from Peru and Colombia where, at midnight, blindfolded revelers take turns choosing from three potatoes: one peeled, one partially peeled, and one with its skin. Partially peeled forecasts a normal year, fully peeled means a year without money, and with skin equates to a year of prosperity. Czechoslovakians prefer to predict their futures by cutting open apples and reading the “stars” formed by the seed pods in the cores.

 

What To Wear for the Big Night

Beyond donning sequins and glitz, one might borrow a cue from other countries.

• In Italy, wearing red underwear is believed to bring romance, but In Argentina, wearing pink underwear is thought to be equally effective.
• In Bolivia, wearing yellow underwear is thought to bring prosperity.

 

Things Might Get Wet

Not surprisingly, water (a universal symbol of birth and rebirth) is part of many New Year’s traditions.

• Russians brave frigid temperatures by getting into wetsuits, diving into frozen lakes, and “planting” trees beneath the icy surfaces.
• Canadians take cold plunges in the English Bay.
• Brazilians throw white flowers into the ocean to seek the blessings of the sea spirits.

 

This year, revelers especially anxious to say good riddance to the hardships of 2021 and to welcome a healthier and more peace-filled 2022 might embrace not only tried and true traditions, but also some of these zany practices of other cultures. And if you’re longing to travel but you spent all your money on holiday gift-giving, follow the lead of Colombians and grab some empty suitcases, jog around the block, and hope that travel and good fortune will be in your new year.