New year traditions 🎉

Hello everybody,

Another small article on the end of the year holidays. As you can read in my previous posts, the end of year celebrations inspire me and make me want to discover new traditions coming from other countries than mine.

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I have a friend who went to live in Spain and he told me that the New Year meal does not start until midnight and that it is customary for everyone to eat a grape at every stroke of the bell. midnight, you can imagine a little hamster's mouth. This helps to achieve luck, prosperity and success for the coming year.
The majority of Spaniards celebrate the new year in a room or at home but there are also many who perpetuate this tradition in public squares and swallow grapes all together friends, neighbors or even unknown passage.

The arrival of the New Year is a universal event celebrated in all the countries of the world except surely in some tribes who live in the middle of the forest and who do not have the same notion of the time that we and who certainly have other ancestral traditions we do not know.

Each country has its own traditions and its way of celebrating this passage to the year nine.

Here are some countries and their traditions to celebrate the transition to the New Year.

Little anecdote before starting, my dad to himself has established a family tradition that consists of laying a piece of rope on the ground in a straight line, of all holding hands and at the time of the twelve strokes of midnight, to pass all together to above this thread, as if we were crossing a new stage.

Then we run to the window to watch the fireworks, indeed, there is always a neighbor or two who fires fireworks in his garden. Otherwise, we have no particular tradition except for a good meal and counting the twelve strokes of midnight before kissing. We usually end the evening slumped on the couch, belly well inflated, watching the bloopers who loop on television.

In Japan

The Japanese celebrate the new year with the family. They start the day doing a great spring clean if you can say it like that, they clean their house to purify it. And they also get rid of the tasks in progress in order to be light-minded.

Then they decorate it with lucky charms and place offerings for their god in the form of rice cake.
On New Year's Eve, they all enjoy a broth with noodles.

Just before midnight, they listen to the 108 gongs from a nearby Buddhist temple announcing the arrival of the new year.

The tradition is to go to bed to get up early the next day to admire the first sunrise of the new year.
In the week following the new year, the tradition is that the whole family goes to drink the first sake of the year in a temple to bring them good health 🎎🍶

In England

The English put them, after midnight, in their pocket a coin, a little salt and a piece of coal, that represents the money, the food and the heat that they will have during the new year.

Speaking of play, it reminds me of a tradition in Liège, Ville en Belgique, where on New Year's Day they eat sauerkraut and put a coin under their plate, it will bring them prosperity all year long.

I notice that coins often make their appearance in tradition and are often a sign of luck, like throwing a coin into a well or a fountain to make a wish. I do not know if it works with the Steem too?

In New Zealand

New Zealand is the first to celebrate the new year in the world, and we can see them celebrating New Year's Day at the spoken word of the afternoon while we prepare the meal. in the evening, which raises the tension for our moment to us.

Next year, hopefully, I will celebrate the new year in Singapore, indeed, we are going to visit my cousin who has gone to live there a few years for the work of her husband, I can also observe their and customs.

In some cities, the tradition is to take out its best pots at midnight and hit them to create a deafening din in the streets.

There are also many places where they organize outdoor parties with music, DJs and fireworks.

In Quebec

A funny tradition in Quebec is that men disguise themselves as women and women dress up as men.

Then they drink rum to warm up after kissing a cod 🐟

They have another tradition a little disgusting dating back to 1920, they have to drink a cocktail in a glass where floats a real big toe. The local custom says "You can drink it fast, you can drink it slow. But the lips have gotta touch the toe. " 😨

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In Sydney

In Sydney, on New Year's Eve, the boats make circles in the bay and illuminate with a thousand lights. At midnight, there are about 80,000 fireworks bursting over the harbor and Harbor Bridge. It's magical and magical.

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In St. Petersburg

In Russia, some people still eat the traditional roast Empress, it is a larch stuffed with anchovy olives that is slipped into a partridge which is then put in a pheasant to finally put everything in a piglet. It is quite complicated to achieve and it is relatively expensive.

The Russians also have another custom, at midnight, they write greetings on a piece of paper then they burn it and put the ashes in their glass of champagne. They must then quickly drink their glass so that their wishes come true.

in Peru

In Peru, they take advantage of the arrival of the New Year to settle their differences with their neighbors. They can put on boxing gloves and fight with them. You imagine, you fight with your neighbor or your neighbor with boxing gloves because she did not receive you a coli when you were absent 😁🤼‍

After settling their accounts, they dress with clothing whose color matches what he hopes for the coming year. Red brings love, yellow attracts money, ...

And you ? Which country do you come from and what are your New Year traditions?