Share New Year’s Traditions From Around the World

 

On New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day many of us will participate in various traditional activities of our own creation or ones dictated to us by our cultural upbringing. New Year’s celebrations take many forms across the globe. Here are a few still practiced by some in the countries listed.   

Canada

Some Canadians choose an icy start to the New Year. The Polar Bear Swim involves jumping into icy water with only your bathing suit.

Denmark

Throwing dishes may be a sign of domestic anger in some countries., but it means good things to the Danish at New Year’s. People save their broken or discarded dishes all year and throw them on their friends’ doorsteps. A lot of broken dishes on your doorstep indicates you have a lot of friends. 

France

Instead of kissing under the mistletoe during the Christmas season, the French wait until midnight on New Year’s Eve.

Germany

Watching Dinner for One, a 1963 British skit, on New Year’s Eve remains a tradition for many German families. Also, New Year’s Day is considered a good time to predict your future for the coming year.

Italy

You may never know it, but Italians put on red underwear for good luck in the coming year.

The Netherlands

Eating ring-shaped food, like doughnuts, helps you to “come full circle” on New Year’s Eve.

United Kingdom

In Scotland, for good luck in the New Year, the First Footer (the first person to enter your home after midnight on New Year’s Eve) should be male and dark-haired. He should bring with him symbolic coal, shortbread, salt and whiskey.

The Welsh consider it good karma to pay your all your debts before the end of the year. The English open the back door to let out the old year, then open the front door to the First Footer. After he delivers his coal, etc., he takes a pile of ashes from the fire with him to usher out the old year.

Spain

The Spanish make special use of the very last seconds of the old year. They gather around a chiming clock and at each stroke of midnight, each person has to eat a grape, considered a food of good fortune. Each grape represents one month of the year. So if, for instance, the fifth grape is sour, May could be a difficult month. All the grapes should be eaten by the last stroke of the clock. 

E-mailing Encourages Deception

It’s well known that e-mails are a source of misinterpretation and miscommunication because they lack nonverbal and behavioral cues. However, two new studies at Lehigh University reveal that e-mail is the most deceptive form of communication in the workplace. Perhaps more surprising, though, is the finding that people feel justified in lying when using e-mail.

In one study, students working towards a masters degree in business administration were given $89 to divide between themselves and a fictional party, who knew only that the amount of money to be divided was between $5 and $100. The students sent e-mails to the fictional parties stating the amount of money to be divided and how much the other party would get. However, the students using e-mail lied 92 percent of the time about the total amount being divided, while students who used pen and paper lied only 64 percent of the time. In another study in which the students were more familiar with whom they were e-mailing, researchers wondered whether the familiarity would reduce the e-mailers’ impulse to lie, but the lies continued at about the same rate.

“These findings are consistent with our other work that shows that e-mail communication decreases the amount of trust and cooperation we see in professional group work and increases the negativity in performance evaluations, all as opposed to pen-and-paper systems,” said researcher Terri Kurtzberg. “People seem to feel more justified in acting in self-serving ways when typing as opposed to writing.”