Holiday traditions are an excellent way to make and keep connections with the other members of your family. Many people turn on the TV, catch the countdown, and watch the ball drop in Times Square. A lot of people will always spend New Year’s Eve surrounded by crowds at a large gathering. Does your family have a traditional way to celebrate on New Year’s Eve?
It’s fairly common to make New Year’s Resolutions on December 31, or January 1, and some family traditions include telling people what your resolutions for the new year will be. If you, and a few of your relatives, all have decided to lose weight this year, perhaps you can motivate each other.
What you do to celebrate New Year’s Eve might depend on what country you are in. In China, people try to pay off all debts before the end of the year, in order to start fresh in the new year. In Italy, it is a tradition to throw out old things on New Year’s Eve. These old things go right out the windows, and wind up in the streets, where other people can “shop” through them. Some African traditions include preforming divinations about the upcoming year.
My family has had a long tradition of watching movies together on New Year’s Eve. This tradition started when I was young, and when VCRs were the new technology. My father had some friends who had a few kids that were the same age as me and my sister. This family would host New Year’s Eve parties at their home, and invite a large group of family and friends.
Three rooms would be set up so that people could watch movies all night long. They would create a list of showtimes, so that people could move from room to room, and catch whichever movies interested them the most. The wide selection of movies made it easy to find something that was “family friendly” at all times. All of the movies were set up so that they would end about half an hour before midnight.
Another room would be used to serve food and drinks, and would be where people could talk, and move around. When the movies were over, everyone would gather in this room, and be given a drink. Children, of course, were given non-alcoholic drinks, (but often were allowed to taste a sip of their parent’s champaign later on). We would count down the end of the old year together, and drink a toast to the brand new year. There were more movies scheduled to begin playing after midnight, and everyone was welcome to stay the entire night. Most people chose to stay, both because the party was going to continue, and also to avoid having to locate a designated driver. I remember falling asleep on the floor, curled comfortably into warm blankets, as some of the movies played. Today, as an adult, I continue this tradition, and watch a lot of movies on New Year’s Eve.
Image by Mike Renlund on Flickr