5 of the Most Bizarre New Year's Traditions

Dishes and grapes and effigies, oh my!
By Evann Gastaldo,  Newser Staff
Posted Dec 31, 2013 8:14 PM CST
5 of the Most Bizarre New Year's Traditions
Grapes.   (©)

Think it's weird that you're going to drunkenly sing "Auld Lang Syne" when the clock strikes midnight? Well, don't feel too strange. Oddee rounds up 10 even weirder New Year's Eve traditions from around the world. A sampling:

  • In Denmark, revelers throw dishes at one another's doors. The more broken dishes end up in front of your door, the luckier you will be ... because you have that many friends willing to throw dishes at your door.
  • In Italy, the way to bring good luck is to wear red underwear (because the color calls on the Archangel Michael to protect you).

  • You better like grapes if you live in Spain. When the clock turns to midnight, at each toll of the bell during that first minute, residents eat a grape until they've reached a dozen. The idea is to bring prosperity and fend off evil.
  • That's simple, compared to what happens in Finland: Residents there find a piece of tin, melt it, and turn it into a random shape they can then interpret to predict what will happen in the coming year.
  • That may be weird, but this sounds kind of fun: In Panama, residents burn life-sized models of public figures (think politicians or celebrities) on their lawns to symbolize their desire to see them less often in the next year.
Click for the complete list, including a country where women must compete in games of skill to predict who might win a husband in the coming year. (More New Year's Eve stories.)

Get the news faster.
Tap to install our app.
X
Install the Newser News app
in two easy steps:
1. Tap in your navigation bar.
2. Tap to Add to Home Screen.

X