New Year

For most of us, the New Year means hope for a new beginning, another chance to make a positive difference not only in our own lives but also to those around us. It signifies another opportunity for us to become a better, healthier, more beautiful, and more successful version of who we currently are. Typically, we’d make a list, literally or figuratively, of our New Year’s resolutions. Typically too, we’d invoke or evoke good luck to come our way to help us bring to completion what we resolve to do and/or be in the coming 12 months. Superstitious or not, we cling to certain traditional practices for inviting good luck into our homes and into our lives on New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day. If they work, that’s well and good. If not, there’s no harm done in having tried. Of course, the actual practices for invoking or evoking or summoning good fortune varies depending on which cultural milieu you came from. If your roots are Latin American, chances are you’d be wearing bright red or yellow underpants on your way to welcoming the New Year. If you’re from Italy or Portugal, you’d probably be eating 12 grapes from a bunch at the stroke of midnight. If you’re from the Philippines, you’d likely be in polka dots and munching on as many assorted round fruits as possible as you clink away at the coins which fill up your pockets. Among people belonging to a common nationality or culture, there are certain beliefs they usually share that doing certain things on New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day will somehow affect how the coming days and months ahead will turn out eventually. Most like the Chinese employ public ceremonial dancing and fireworks displays to ward off evil spirits and bad luck. The Dutch set their Christmas trees on fire and build bonfires on the street as they light fireworks and parade about and around the town. Panamanians on the other hand prefer to burn effigies of their politicians and other well-known personalities. The Scots hold parades of men who swing fireballs attached to poles around and over their heads. The Danes throw plates and glasses against the doors of their friends and relatives while Colombians walk around their neighborhoods carrying empty suitcases. And South Africans throw old appliances and other heavy things out their windows, just as the Japanese visit their temples to hear the bells chime 108 times. For many Americans, well, their New Year’s Day [...]