What Are Some Ways You Can Celebrate the New Year?

By Ally Chan

Well, we must all know about the iconic Sydney fireworks, the beautiful ones at Sydney Harbour. Well, some people all across the globe do very different things. For example, in Spain, there is a tradition of eating 12 grapes on New Year's Eve, and in the South, black-eyed peas are eaten instead. 

In Denmark, in addition to all the noise coming from the fireworks, they smash plates at their neighbours' doors; I wouldn’t want to be in Denmark over the New Year. In Brazil, people wear white and jump over 7 waves for good luck, and in Ecuador, people burn fake statues of people and crosses to get rid of the bad luck. Similar to the fireworks in Australia, in New York, at the time, a Waterford ball drops to signal the New Year – usually, over a million people go to see this event. 

In China, they don’t celebrate the new year we normally think of. They celebrate something called the Lunar New Year. 12 animals rotate each year: the mouse, the ox, the tiger, the rabbit, the dragon, the snake, the horse, the goat, the rooster, the dog, and the pig. They change around the New Year. This year it’s the horse. The celebration can also be called the Chinese New Year, or the Spring Festival. In Japan, the Chinese New Year is called Shōgatsu.

So many people across the world celebrate this in so many different ways. Ireland puts mistletoes under their pillow to dream about their future partner, Greeks put onions on their door, and there are so many other ways that I haven’t mentioned in this article, so Happy New Year, welcome 2026, and peace out.