Howdy, fellow Americans, here in the States, it’s typical to celebrate the New Year by attending parties with our friends and family, making resolutions, watching the ball drop, staying up until midnight to watch the countdown and cheering when it hits 12:00 midnight. But what about other countries and cultures? How do they celebrate their New Year?
Brazil celebrates by wearing underwear, specifically, colored underwear. It’s said to bring good luck and the colors all have different meanings.Wearing pink brings you love, yellow brings money, green brings health, so on and so forth. For their overwear, white is the way to go, it came from an African religious tradition and was adopted by other cultures. They also get on elevated surfaces for the countdown, platforms like tables, and chairs are stepped all over during New Years.
Finland has a very interesting way of fortune-telling for New Years. Tin horseshoes are melted and afterwards thrown into cold water or snow so it freezes and turns into a unique shape. “This shape the horseshoe comes out with will represent your fortune. You, the reader, are probably thinking right now, what? You’re wrong, you put it against a wall, shine a light on it, and find out from the shadow. A horse means you’ll get a new car, an anchor is for stability, and lots of other possibilities.
Panama gets even more interesting with their effigies. Effigies, or life-sized dolls, are laid outside and they represent people or things you don’t like. An alternative to the dolls is also writing a list of people who you don’t like and burning it once the New Year starts. Although I’ve mentioned pretty “out there” traditions, Panamanians have more typical traditions as well. It is customary to write down 7 resolutions which can include both things you want and don’t want to happen. Holding money when the clock strikes is good luck, and there are also lots of fireworks.
Of course, there are many, many other cultures I did not mention and lots of traditions I didn’t either. Still, I had quite a bit of fun looking through the New Years traditions of other countries and it was quite interesting. Thank you for reading and although I’m a bit late, Happy New Year!
Sources:
https://matadornetwork.com/read/finnish-new-year-traditions
The Viking Journal 