New Year’s Eve, with its emphasis on romance and indulgence, might seem like a totally secular celebration, but underneath all the glitter and sparkle is an ancient holiday with deep spiritual roots. For centuries, and in similar ways, people have been observing the end of one year and the beginning of another.

Ancient Romans celebrated with six days of carousing that would probably be familiar to us today. St. Boniface, a missionary from England who visited Rome in 742, was appalled at how the Romans celebrated Kalends of January, as the New Year was called, with dancing in the streets, heathenish cries, sacrilegious songs, tables laden with food and women wearing amulets and offering them for sale.

A time of rebirth
Because the Winter Solstice is the turning point of the year, beginning the lengthening of days, it has been long viewed as the birth of the year – by pagans celebrating the return of the Sun and by Christians welcoming the birth of the Son of God. The days between Solstice and the New Year are a magical, luminous time period when anything is possible. In England, the Twelve Days of Christmas were considered omen days, which could be used to predict the weather in the coming year. In Scotland, no court had power during these days; and in Ireland, tradition held that if a person died during the Twelve Days, he or she went straight to heaven.

In ancient Babylon, the days between Winter Solstice and the New Year were seen as the time of a struggle between Chaos and Order, with Chaos trying to take over the world. Other cultures (Hindu, Chinese and Celtic) also viewed this as a time for reversing order and rules – celebrants would change roles with servants or dress in costumes for a time until order was restored.

Starting fresh
While each culture’s New Year celebration has its own flavor, there are certain common themes. The period leading up to New Year’s Day is a time for setting things straight: a thorough housecleaning, paying off debts, returning borrowed objects, reflecting on one’s shortcomings, mending quarrels and/or the giving of alms. In many cultures, people jump into the sea or a local body of water – literally washing the slate clean.

In some towns and villages in Italy, people will shove old sofas, chairs, clothes and even appliances from their windows to rid themselves of old items before the New Year. In Ecuador, people make dummies, stuffed with straw, to represent the events of the past year. These “ano viejo” effigies are burned at midnight, thus symbolically getting rid of the past.

Whatever preparations are made, most traditions teach that they should be completed before midnight on New Year’s Eve. According to British folklore, you should not sweep on New Year’s Day, or you will sweep your luck away. Also, in accordance to tradition, you should not take anything out of your house – not even the trash. You only want to bring new things in to insure abundance in the coming year. If you must carry something out of your home, be sure to bring something new in first, preferably a coin concealed outside the previous night.

Rituals (and underwear) for good fortune
Everything you do on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day is freighted with significance for the future. The American custom of spending the night with the one you love and kissing them at midnight insures that the relationship will flourish during the coming year. In Rio de Janeiro, more than a million people gather on the beaches on December 31st to honor Yemanja, the Yoruban “Mother of the Sea,” who brings good fortune.

Even the color of underwear Brazilians wear on the first day of the New Year has meaning. Pink brings love; yellow, prosperity; and white, peace and happiness.

Pigs and pomegranates for good luck
The pig is the symbol for good luck in Vienna, Austria. Pigs are let loose in restaurants and everyone tries to touch them for luck as they run by. In private homes, a marzipan pig, with a gold piece in his mouth, is suspended from a ribbon and touched instead. In Greece, it’s customary to throw pomegranates wrapped in silver foil on the threshold to spread seeds of good luck for an abundant year.

In Spanish-speaking countries, people put twelve grapes into their wine or champagne glass at midnight. The grapes represent the months of the old year. At the stroke of midnight, after toasting each other with the wine, people eat the grapes as quickly as possible, making a one wish for each grape.

Food and Money: Ensuring Abundance
As everything has significance on New Year’s Day, the first person to cross your threshold after midnight brings luck to the household in the British Isles. In Scotland, the best possible “first-footer” was a tall, handsome, dark-haired man, who brought gifts of whisky, bread, a piece of coal or firewood and a silver coin. He entered in silence, and no one spoke to him until he put the coal on the fire, poured a glass of whisky for the head of the house and wished everyone a Happy New Year. In France, the children knock on their parents’ bedroom door, pretending to personify health, abundance and joy – which the parents welcome.

Food eaten on New Year’s Day is said to affect the quality of the coming year. The ancient Romans exchanged bay and palm branches hung with sweets, dates, figs and gilded fruits. The items hung on the branch expressed hopes the New Year would be sweet, fertile and prosperous.

Neapolitans still wrap dried figs in laurel leaves and exchange then as a kind of insurance of abundance for the coming year. They also make confections of caramelized dough and tiny almond pieces, so the year will be sweet.

The Piedmontese eat little grains of rice that represent money. The traditional Umbrian New Year’s cake is made of almonds, sugar and egg whites. It is shaped like a coiled snake to represent the way snakes shed their skin to renew themselves – just like people leave behind the old year and embrace the new. Italians also serve lentils, raisins and oranges – the symbols of riches, good luck and the promises of love.

In the American South, it’s traditional to eat cornbread, cabbage and black-eyed peas on New Year’s Day. The peas symbolize the bringing of good luck, the cornbread gold and cabbage is representative of greenbacks – money.

A Japanese New Year’s custom is the money tree: pine and cypress branches placed in a vase and decorated with old coins and paper pomegranates and flowers. Old coins (with holes in them) are strung on colored threads in the shape of a dragon and put at the foot of children’s beds. This is given as a gift, usually with red envelopes.

Out with the old and in with the new
Although many of these customs may seem like superstitions, they all stem from a similar belief: by ending the old year with respect and beginning the new one in the way we would like it to begin, we establish our intentions for the new year. Whether we gather together to watch the ball drop in Times Square or set off firecrackers at midnight or clink champagne glasses with our loved ones, we are acknowledging an important transition and welcoming a fresh start.