By Elaine Rassel
How did you celebrate New Year’s Eve? There were three places in Marcus serving good food you could enjoy with family/friends. Or, you could have had people in and celebrated. I didn’t hear any fireworks going off. Did you wait up to see the “ball drop”!
What about other countries? I found some interesting ones that make our American ones seem plain and simple!
Hanging out in South Africa for New Year’s? Well, prepare for some eye-popping firework displays and all-night parties! Also, in Cape Town (the country’s second-largest city), people hold a special carnival. Groups sing and dance while wearing brightly colored clothes and face paint. And different neighborhoods in the city have their own unique clothes and colors and celebrate in style!
Let’s take a trip to Denmark. Who knew that smashed dishes on your front porch were a good thing? Well, the people of Denmark think so! Seeing a pile of broken dishes isn’t something to worry about. It’s usually left by a friend or family member and is actually a sign of good luck. Whew! People keep their broken dishes throughout the year for this special occasion. (Maybe the people of U.S. should take their dishes to Denmark as Antique Roadshow says that dishes are not valuable anymore.)
If you’re celebrating the New year in Japan, you better rest up because you’re in for a three-day festival! It’s full of fun games, mountains of food and family visits. And one special New Year tradition is to place a decoration called “kadomatsu” outside your home (usually two, one either side of the entrance). A kadomatsu is made of pine branches, bamboo, and plum twigs. It symbolizes good luck and is believed to help welcome good spirits into your home.
If you celebrate in Portugal, hopefully you like grapes. You’re going to need to eat them if you’re celebrating the Portuguese way. This popular tradition involves eating 12 grapes (one for each month) as the clock strikes midnight on New year’s Eve. But you have to try to finish them all before the final stroke rings out. Can’t stay up that late? Well, don’t worry! Portuguese children get to visit houses and collect treats on New Year’s Day. (Is this like Halloween?!)
If you celebrate in Greece, you may need tough teeth if you are eating cake here on New Year’s Day. In Greece, January 1 is also the festival of Saint Basil. Saint Basil was a man who lived long ago, but many people still follow his teachings. So, lots of Greek people have extra-special traditions on this day. One of them is to make a cake called St. Basil’s Cake. The secret ingredient is a gold or silver coin. Whoever gets the slice of cake with the coin can expect to have a year full of good luck.
Better rinse out that spaghetti sauce stain on your white T-shirt if you are celebrating in Brazil. Many Brazilians believe wearing white clothes on New Year’s Eve will bring good luck and peace in the New Year. They also make life-sized dolls with face masks. These dolls represent bad events from the past year, and they’re burnt at midnight on New Year’s Eve to release these bad memories and make room for some good ones.
In the Philippines, make some noise! One New Year’s custom is to use noisemakers, blast music, and generally be as loud as you can. People believe the noise will keep away any bad luck and evil spirits. Also, wearing clothes with circular designs is considered good luck. This is because the circle is a symbol of good fortune and money. Time to break out your polka-dotted clothes!
If you are in South Korea, you might head for the beach! No, we can’t do that here, but it is lots warmer in South Korea. Lots of seaside towns hold “sunrise festivals,” where people gather and watch the first sunrise of the New Year. It’s believed that anyone who makes a wish at sunrise will have their wish come true. Some people also write down their hopes and dreams for the New Year. They put them in balloons or lanterns, and release them into the sky.
Would you have liked to go to any of these countries and celebrate or be satisfied with how we celebrate?!