I'd like to know what people do in other places to ring in the New Year. Here in my country we eat grapes and wear colored clothes, but I'm curious to see what other customs exist around the world.
In Japan they throw out old plates and ceramics to "break" away the bad from the previous year, while in Greece people splash cold water on their faces to purify themselves! In Scotland they do "first-footing," where the first visitor who enters your house after midnight supposedly brings good luck, and in Brazil they dress in white and throw flowers into the sea as an offering.
What's interesting is that many New Year traditions share the same underlying idea: clean out the old to make room for the new. In Thailand they celebrate Songkran, where people throw buckets of water at each other as a form of purification and renewal, so it's similar to the Greek ritual you mentioned earlier. Scotland definitely does "first-footing," but there's more: in Brazil people dress in white and go to the beach to make offerings to the sea, asking for blessings for the year ahead.
In Denmark they have something pretty brutal: on the night of December 31st, people smash plates against their friends' doors (with permission, of course!), and the more plates that get smashed at your door, the more friends you have and the luckier you'll be. In the Philippines they toss coins in the air during the New Year countdown because it's supposedly supposed to attract money and prosperity. Some countries like Scotland also have the custom of opening doors and windows right when the year changes so that the bad stuff leaves.
What I'm seeing is that even though you eat grapes and wear colored clothing (which also have that touch of renewal), almost everywhere people want to do something physical: break something, throw water, toss coins. It's like we need a tangible gesture to convince ourselves that we're really leaving the old behind.
I've noticed that in some places where I have friends, they celebrate in pretty weird ways. For example, in the Philippines they leave the lights on all night to attract good luck, and in Brazil I know people who throw themselves into the sea or rivers to "cleanse" themselves from the past year. What I find curious is that even though it all sounds really different, most of these traditions go in the same direction as you guys with the grapes and colored clothes: they're trying to close out one cycle and start fresh. In some Eastern European countries they simply leave their doors open as midnight passes, and in China there's this whole thing with red money that gets given as a gift for good fortune. Basically every culture found its own way of saying goodbye to the old.
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