The Culture Around New Year's Eve

New Year’s eve is a big part of our American Culture. It’s a time for families and friends to get together and celebrate. For this edition we’ll be counting down five traditions for New Year’s Eve. The first tradition is throwing a party. There are usually fun games, photo booths, sparklers, and confetti poppers. At my house, we usually play board games such as Monopoly or Risk to pass the time. Then, we’ll set up for our party and get dressed up. This is also the next tradition. Most people go out and put on their best clothes to start the new year off right, but it’s also okay to stay in sweats. No one is judging you. We also put up our photo booth and eat the meal. This leads us to our third tradition: food. On the website, AllRecipes, there is an article called “7 Lucky Foods to Eat on New Year's Day.” Vanessa Greaves explains how peas represent pennies, green vegetables represent money, and cornbread represents gold. These all are symbolic for wealth and prosperity. In some parts of the world, pork is symbolic for progress, while in Spain and Mexico, if you eat twelve grapes at midnight you’ll have luck for the rest of the year (one grape per month). Seeds are associated with fertility, and in Greece they throw pomegranates to symbolize abundance. Some places in Asia and Europe eat fish for their New Year’s Eve to also symbolize abundance. Long noodles represent a long life and rice represents wealth and fertility. Finally, ring cakes represent a circle of luck and sometimes a coin is hidden in the cake, which is extra lucky for those who find it. The fourth New Year’s Eve tradition is watching the ball drop. Millions of people every year go to Time Square to watch the famous ball drop. At 11:59 p.m,. the ball starts slowly sliding down the flagpole until it reaches the bottom at 12:00 a.m. It’s a great way to start the new year. The fifth and final tradition is the making of new year’s resolutions. A resolution gives us hope for the new year, even though we may end up failing after a couple of weeks. No matter if we succeed or not, it’s about trying to better ourselves. I encourage everyone to make a resolution and make it last for as long as you can. I wish you a happy, abundant, and successful year! Happy 2019!

Sources:

Greaves, Vanessa. “7 Lucky Foods to Eat on New Year's Day.” Allrecipes, dish.allrecipes.com/new-years-day-lucky-foods/.

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