2025 has been a gut-wrenching, soul-searching, rapturing, bewildering, profound, overexerting, facilitating, purposeful, nonsensical, heartbreaking year. It requires courage and focus to emerge on the other side, unbroken.
So, we endure, and secure our seatbelts, for this next part of the ride.
Now, let’s take a look at …
New Year’s Eve traditions:
1. Eat 12 grapes at midnight (Spain)
Nochevieja, Spanish for “New Year’s Eve,” is a tradition from Spain to bring good luck. At midnight, celebrators eat las doce uvas de la suerte, (12 grapes for luck), to symbolize the hours on the clock.
2. Bang on pots (Ireland)
No one wants bad spirits hanging around for the new year. Join the Irish and scare away unwanted spirits and poor fortune by banging pots and pans at midnight.
3. Serve oysters and Champagne (France)
A traditional part of French New Year’s Eve parties is Le Réveillon de la Saint Sylvestre or Le Réveillon du Nouvel An, a feast that often includes oysters, foie gras, and of course, Champagne. The custom alludes to Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty who emerged from the ocean on an oyster shell.
4. Welcome dark-haired visitors (Scotland)
Hogmanay is Scottish Gaelic for “the last day of the year,” and a tradition that dates back to the 8th century when the Vikings invaded Scotland. For good luck in the new year, Scots practice the tradition of “first-footing,⁰” where the first person – preferably a dark-haired person for the best luck – to enter a home in the New Year brings a small gift for good fortune. They also burn large bonfires to reflect the Vikings’ winter solstice celebrations.
5. Burn down the old year (Italy)
The Italian New Year’s tradition of il Rogo del Vecchione, (“The Old Man’s Burning”), in the Italian city of Bologna, involves burning down the old year – or in this case, the effigy of an old man – to incinerate last year’s bad luck.
6. Wear colored underwear (Mexico)
During the New Year’s Mexican tradition Año Nuevo, celebrators wear different colored underwear for different wishes for the new year – red for love, yellow for happiness, green for wealth, and white for peace.
7. Toss a coin into a river (Romania)
Tossing a coin into a river in Romania is supposed to bring luck on New Year’s Eve. If you do not have a river around, a local fountain will do.
8. Dress in polka dots (Philippines)
Like many other cultures, Filipino New Year’s involve wishing for good luck and prosperity for the next year. Wearing polka dots is traditionally thought to bring prosperity and wealth.
9. Hang onions (Greece)
Welcome good spirits of fortune and fertility into your year by hanging onions above your door. You can also use them the next day for a delicious Greek meal.
10. Go ice fishing (Canada)
Nothing says a new start like a trip to a freezing lake – followed by roasting delicious, fresh-caught fish. Find the coldest body of water you can (safely) access and say goodbye to last year like the Canadians do.
11. Run with an empty suitcase (Colombia)
Want to travel in the new year? Find an empty suitcase and run around the block with it at midnight. Colombians believe that doing this correctly will guarantee many safe travels in the year to come.
12. Visit a cemetery (Chile)
Chileans use New Year’s Eve to reflect on memories from the past. They hold mass in local cemeteries to honor and spend time with loved ones who are gone.
13. Pop bottles
It is common to drink Champagne, cava, or prosecco on New Year’s Eve. For a traditional but perhaps underappreciated, warmer take on the New Year’s cocktail, try Wassail, a cider-like punch with English origins, or red wine mulled with citrus and star anise.
14. Sing “Auld Lang Syne”
Based on a poem written by Robert Burns in 1788 and set to the tune of a traditional folk song, “Auld Lang Syne” is an international song for bidding goodbye to last year – but not its friendships. It is common to hold hands with the person next to you to form a circle on the dance floor while singing this catchy tune.
15. Watch the ball drop
Times Square in New York City is iconic for its New Year’s ball drop, which is broadcast all over the globe. But why limit yourself to a big shiny ball? You can also tune into the pickle if you’re in Mount Olive, NC, or the sardine in Eastport, ME, the conch shell in Key West, FL, or the Big Cheese in Plymouth, WI.
16. Kiss someone
What better luck can you have than being with the person you love at the end – and start – of the year? As the saying goes: “Kiss the person you hope to keep kissing.”
Happy New Year everyone, and may 2026 provide comfort, grace, and achievement – or at the very least – blissful ignorance.
Did You Know? The first New Year’s Eve ball drop in New York City happened on December 31, 1907, to welcome the year 1908, organized by The New York Times owner Adolph Ochs as a replacement for fireworks. The original ball, made by Jacob Starr, was lowered by hand from a flagpole atop One Times Square to celebrate the new year, marking the start of the epochal tradition.
You NEVER disappoint in your writings ——-I am making a copy as I have done on my favorite ones and will reread —-Another gift you have is the intros and endings you are a great writer and hope you share that Talent—— that has existed and manifested in different writings over the years at important times in your life— I hope your gift will reach many more people in 2026———–All the best life offers most of all– I and so grateful for -THE Pear for giving me comfort and joy every week in2025