Saturday 31 December 2016

Saturday Potpourri – New Year traditions


We are amongst the first countries in the World to celebrate New Year.  Gisborne on our East coast is the first city in the world to see in the New Year.  When our year starts, most of the rest of the world is still living the previous day.  Time zones can do your head in a bit!

To celebrate the New Year I have researched a bit on the different ways that New Year is celebrated around the world.


Many countries celebrate with fireworks – beautiful to watch but you do have to wonder about the sense of all that money going up in smoke and polluting the air – not to speak of the fire risk… and all those frightened pets….

But I digress:

Mexicans apparently celebrate by eating a grape with each of the 12 chimes of the bell at midnight.

In New York there is the traditional ball drop in Times Square.


In Denmark they have a special meal which finishes with Kransekage – a special dessert and with champagne.

Greeks do the final countdown in the dark and then open their eyes to the new light.

Italians, or some of them, wear red underwear at New Year!

A Portuguese tradition is to drink champagne and eat 12 raisins – one for each month of the year.

Scots have a first-footing tradition – the first person to come into a house in the New Year – a tall dark man is thought to be lucky.

Sydney has a spectacular fireworks display.

Buddhist temples ring their bells 108 times at midnight.

1 comment:

  1. All great traditions! You will be ringing in the New Year much before me and I hope it is a great one!

    ReplyDelete

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