Different Ways of Celebrating New Year

With New Year approaching in just a week, people have different levels of excitement, definitely
a HOPE that things would be normal, everything would be peaceful and the new year would
bring joy, love, luck, light and good health to all of us. New Year is about everything being new,
new resolution, forgetting about the unfortunate things, looking forward to what a brand new
year has to offer and this first day of the year should be celebrated, because this day is the new
beginning.
As 2020, has been extra rough on all of us, a bumpy ride, we all have been constantly waiting
for a new year and definitely gonna celebrate a little. The New Year Celebration is amongst one
of the most popular celebrations of all times. There goes a planning for days to celebrate, some
have rituals others have party plans, this celebration varies in different countries.
We have curated a few countries and their ways of celebrating New Year, which either has a
historic reason behind it or has a logic or belief behind it.
Denmark
To embark on friendship, the citizens of Denmark collect the old dishes and break those dishes
on each other’s front doors. The people living in the houses let the broken dishes pile in order to
see who has got the maximum number of friends. Isn’t it amazing? Also, a chance to see how
many real friends do you have.

China
New year is all about love,light and luck, following this, Chinese follow a tradition of painting
their front doors to red. During New Year, the whole country can be seen only Red from red
rackets for married couples, red lanterns, red packets for kids and so on. Everything is painted
in Red in China. Red is also a symbol of love hence this Chinese tradition symbolises this.

South Africa
Just like other countries, South Africa too has its own way of celebrating New Year. This might
sound totally insane but the people of South Africa sweep away so many things in order to clean
their houses, it’s hard to believe that just to clean their houses they even throw away appliances
and furniture straight away from the windows of sky scraping buildings making New Year
extremely clean in their own way.

Spain
Spain celebrates the New Year by a competition in which they test the speed of eating. The
food tradition here consists of people eating 12 grapes at midnight, one for every time the clock
strikes and it’s believed that if you don’t, you would miss out on the extra good luck for the new
year.Switzerland
The Swiss people have their own way of welcoming a brand new year. Their tradition is full of
twists and in this people of Switzerland don’t eat their new year delicacy instead of that they
drop the cream on the floor.
Austria
Austria celebrates the new year with food. The celebration is two ways, firstly there is a tradition
of searching lucky charm which has been hidden inside a suckling pig. The other way is to find
a peppermint ice cream dessert which is also a sign of economic windfalls in the coming year.
Puerto Rico
The citizens or Puerto Rico apart from cleaning do other things as well as a part of new year
celebration. From cleaning their houses to streets they clean out everything. They follow a practise of throwing away buckets of water straight out of the window with a belief of getting rid
of last year& it’s bad juju.
Philippines
The Philippines New Year’s celebration is totally based upon the round. There people eat round
shaped foods, carry round coins, also wear polka dots hence making sure everything is round.
As the round shape is believed to symbolise money and hence would amplify the finances in the
coming year.
Vietnam
The people of Vietnam kick start their new year by wearing new dresses which aren’t the regular
western clothes but a traditional one which is known as ”ao dai” which is a long gown matched
or say worn with trousers. This is also a great way of not forgetting old traditions of clothes
amidst the speedy race of wearing western clothes daily.
Turkey
As the Red colour holds a significance it continues even in Turkey, here people specifically wear
red underwear at midnight on new year’s Eve as it is believed to bring in good luck.
Brazil
Even Brazil follows the red colour charm and not this the trend goes up to Venezuela and so
many other countries.
Each year has its own vibe, with every year coming in there is a hope for positivity, good luck,
prosperity and a new belief. These traditions are nothing but a human way of celebrating and
welcoming new year. It’s about sharing joy and love with each other, sharing with the less
fortunate and spreading nothing but only happiness.

Written By – Rituja Roy

Edited By – Priyanka Sukhwani