When I was younger, my family always celebrated New Year’s Eve with a delicious fondue dinner and some game playing with Dick Clark’s Rockin’ New Year’s Eve playing in the background. We toasted with champagne or sparkling apple cider at midnight, and that was pretty much it! As an adult, my family’s New Year’s celebration was a quiet night at home with a movie and some Chinese takeout, still watching the ball drop, and toasting the new year but also with traditions from other cultures we’d experienced during our lives and travels.
For New Year’s Eve in the year 2000, I was in the Galapagos Islands onboard the Barque Picton Castle, still in the early days of our global circumnavigation. From onboard the ship, where I was on watch, I watched the smoke and flames from burning effigies that were set afire at midnight. Known as “los años viejos” (the old years), these life-size, flammable dolls often represent famous figures from the past year. Burning these effigies burns away all the bad of the past year, allowing people to start the new year with a clean slate. While we never built any giant papier mache dolls to burn, every year we do make lists of things from the past year that we want to stay in the past and set our lists ablaze in a miniature version of this Ecuadorian tradition.
C spent many years living in Spain before we met, and as a result, he had always celebrated New Year’s Eve by eating 12 grapes – one grape with each chime of the clock at midnight. Known as “las doce uvas de la suerte,” or “the twelve grapes of luck”, the grapes will give you 12 months of good luck, provided you are able to eat them all before the clock finishes striking. The first time we celebrated this together, we made the mistake of buying grapes that were WAY too big. I think I got through three before I could go no further!
So for our first New Year’s Eve living in Spain, there was no question of us eating the 12 grapes at midnight – but this year, I was careful to buy the smallest grapes I could find! And good news – we all made it through all our grapes! 2024 should be a very lucky year!
Ready to test your luck with an overseas move? Email us to find out how we can help.
