Have An Exciting New Year's Party By Incorporating Traditions From Around The World

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New Year's Eve parties can be great fun OR they can be as dull as dirt as you wait around for the midnight hour and the ball drop and the champagne toast and the kiss. Some planning can make all the difference. An idea to enliven your parties is to incorporate some of the new year's traditions from around the world into your celebration. Here are some ideas -- and they work because I've done them!

First, the food. Look up traditional New Year's food from various countries and serve those in a buffet style with small place cards identifying the country which holds these foods lucky.

Second, music is key to any setting. Be sure you have some upbeat, fun music for background AND make music a feature of your party. In Portugal, children go caroling from home to home on New Year's Eve and are given treats and coins. They sing old songs or “Janeiros” which are said to bring good luck. In Japan, much of the nation devotes the last evening of the year to a marathon ”song war” on TV. In 1991, the competition lasted an amazing 4 ½ hours. To commemorate this New Year tradition, gather around the piano and have a sing-a-long of the most popular New Year's songs including What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?, For His Mercy and His Grace, and of course, Auld Lang Syne.

A Spanish tradition is to devour 12 grapes at the start of the new year, popping one with each chime of the clock. It is more difficult than you think! You don't have to wait for this contest until midnight, but can do it at any hour or every hour on the hour! For a twist, do it like the Peruvians do it -- they pop their grapes while sitting underneath a table!

In Puerto Rico, children throw pails of water out the window at midnight, thinking thus to rid their homes of evil spirits. One New Year's, we gave our guests some goblets full of water and went out on the front porch and threw the water out onto the grass.

On New Year's Day in India, cars are decorated with flowers and palm leaves to bless the vehicles to run well in the new year. A great idea is to take some of your Christmas flower arrangements, by this time probably wilting, shred them into confetti, and let guests shower their cars (and bikes) with it.

Janus was the Roman god of new beginnings (yes, that's why the first month of our calendar is January) and in honor of him, you might have your celebrants write predictions about everything from world events to politics to fashion to celebrity gossip. Read the predictions and then store them for next year when you can get them out and see who was psychic!

Bells tolling the new year is a popular tradition throughout the world. In the East, the strongest bell ringing tradition is from Japan. At midnight, temples toll their bells 108 times, symbolizing the 108 human frailties in Buddhist belief. Once listeners have heard all 108 chimes, they’ve been relieved on each sin. The people then laugh after the gongs because laughter is thought to drive away bad spirits. Western bell ringing is championed by Scotland where a great bell in Edinburg known as “Old Lad’s Passing” is rung to signify that the Devil’s reign on earth is passing away as the Lord Jesus comes to reign. You can recreate this tradition by ringing small household bells. In fact, you can even coordinate a handbell-like performance!

Many cultures, including Scotland and South America have effigy burning customs on New Year’s Eve. A dummy is created, stuffed with newspapers and firecrackers. People place objects or sayings on the dummy to represent something unpleasant that happened in the past year. At midnight, the dummy is set on fire and as it goes up in smoke, the firecrackers go off to add to the festivities. The old year is forgotten and the new year begins. Because of fireworks' ordinances and fire hazards, you can recreate this custom on a smaller and safer scale by having partiers write any bad habits or unpleasantness they want to be rid of on small scraps of paper and throwing them into your fireplace.

Since ancient Rome, it has been considered important who is the first person to cross the threshold in the New Year. This is called "first footing." It is thought especially good if new brides, new mothers, anyone born on January 1st, or a tall, dark man enters first. The prejudice against blondes comes from the Middle Ages when Europeans feared the blonde Viking raiders. You might consider having an especially fortunate member of your party go outside right before midnight and then be the first to cross the threshold after the ball has dropped. Be sure he or she crosses with their LEFT foot first, believed lucky in ancient Rome.

by J. Lenora Bresler from Woman To Woman




Make your New Year's celebration different and a little bit of edu-tainment! HAPPY NEW YEAR!