On my way to town to buy some lead, fortune cookies and red underwear for New Year’s Eve, I was wondering whether people in other countries are as superstitious and random as the Germans and Italians.
In Germany we watch Dinner for One, open fortune cookies and melt lead. We predict the New Year by casting the molten lead into a bowl of water and interpreting the shadow of the form it then takes, by holding it behind a candle. It might look like a bottle which means good friendship or like a face which means glory and old age.
However, as my best friend is Italian, he insisted that everyone needs to wear red underwear on New Year’s Eve which ensures to be lucky in love in the New Year. But do not rummage through your drawers now- it has to be new and must be bought by yourself.
To ensure good luck for every month, you might follow the Spanish and Peruvian tradition of eating twelve grapes, one at every stroke of the clock before midnight. Ideally you should manage to eat them all by the time the clock has finished chiming, because every grape signifies good luck for one month of the coming year.
All single ladies might think of celebrating New Year’s Eve in Scotland. Scottish people think that to ensure good luck for the house, the first person to step into their house after midnight should be male, tall, dark and handsome and should carry shortbread, black bun, salt, symbolic coal, to symbolize comfort and warmth, and whiskey.
As most of you travel a lot, you might also consider putting a suitcase in front of your door, as people do it in Mexico to ensure they travel safely throughout the New Year. In order to be happy in the coming year, try pouring a glass of water out in front of your door like people in Estonia. It represents all the tears you won’t cry anymore. And for all of you, who still want to grow taller, try jumping at the stroke of midnight like children in the Philippines.
