New Year traditions

I feel grateful for friends who never fail to greet me every holidays even though we are thousand miles away. It is only December 30th here in United States and in some parts of the world it is already the last day of December. I missed my loved ones and friends in the Philippines. I missed spending New Year with my relatives and observing our traditions. For sure every country has different traditions on how they celebrate the New Year.

In the Philippines, some of the traditions we observe are as follows:

1. We have the "Media Noche" feast which is a dinner celebration by families awaiting the 12 midnight to greet the coming year.
2. We celebrate the New Year with fireworks and explosion to drive away the bad spirits of the current/old year.
3. We wear clothes that have circle designs and we put coins in our pockets believing that it will give us more money in the coming year.
4. We turn on all light fixtures in our house to welcome a bright year.
5. We prepare 12 rounded fruits (one fruit each month) at the dinner table for a prosperous New Year.
6. We prepare "pancit" , it is a Filipino cuisine made of rice stick noodles cooked with soy sauce, vegetables,pork or chicken. The long noodle symbolizes long life.
   7.The old folks tell the children to jump as high as they could at the stroke of midnight to grow taller.

Above are just traditions and also considered superstitious beliefs that we observe during new year. Here in America, I adapted some of their traditions too i.e. Watching the ball drop on New Year's eve, having a good time with family and friends and making New Year's resolutions. I think I am going to do both traditions as the year unfolds.

To my fellow Filipino Steemians, pardon if there's more Filipino traditions that I forgot to mention.

And to everybody, how do you celebrate the new year? Do you have particular tradition that you follow every year?
Feel free to leave a comment below.

Happy New Year fellow Steemians!

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