How do you prepare for the New Year? Here are some interesting New Year's traditions from around the globe:
- In Siberia it is tradition to dive into a frozen lake while holding a tree trunk, which is placed underneath the ice.
- In a traditional festival from Burma, people splash water on one another to start the New Year with a purified soul.
- Armenian mothers bake special bread which they knead with good luck and good wishes.
- In the Philippines homeowners open all their doors and windows on New Year's Eve in order to allow negative energy to leave and good energy to enter.
- Spanish tradition holds that eating 12 grapes just before the clock chimes midnight will bring good fortune for all 12 months of the upcoming year.
- One New Year's custom in Russia is to write a wish for the upcoming year on a piece of paper, then to burn the paper and place the ashes in a glass of champagne, which needs to be consumed right before the New Year is rung in for the wish to come true.
- Residents in Johannesburg, South Africa throw old appliances and furniture out the window, representing the old adage "out with the old and in with the new."
- Brazilians wear white clothing, a custom meant to bring good luck for the upcoming year. This is often accompanied by a trip to the beach to throw flowers in the sea while making a wish.
