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With a bang

Here’s some of the unique New Year’s celebrations that span the globe

A woman wearing Happy New Year glasses drinks champagne after taking part in the Loony Dook on Jan. 1, 2024, in South Queensferry, Scotland. PETER SUMMERS — GETTY IMAGES

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It is time to turn the page on one year and usher in another.

Each Dec. 31, people all over the world reminisce, celebrate, plan, and party in honor of the changing calendar.

Many are likely familiar with some of the common ways to ring in the new year, which include champagne toasts, fireworks and watching the ball drop in Times Square. Yet, there are many other ways to celebrate this occasion and welcome a new year with hope and good luck.

• Make some noise. Although fireworks are commonplace on New Year’s Eve in various locales around the world, in Thailand it once was traditional to fire guns to frighten off demons. National Thailand reports that it is no longer legal to fire weapons during New Year’s Eve festivities, but other noisemakers can simulate the ancient tradition. Thailand also has its own New Year celebration in April called Songkran, a three-day event. It’s customary to splash water and shoot colorful water guns, which is another idea for ringing in the new year.• Smash pomegranates for luck. Many have heard of smashing grapes to make wine, and the band Smashing Pumpkins has millions of devoted followers across the globe. The comic Gallagher used to smash watermelons on stage. But in Turkey, smashing a pomegranate outside your front door is said to bring good luck. The fruit is seen as a symbol of prosperity, abundance and health.

• Make some good luck “Hoppin’ John.” Hoppin’ John is a traditional New Year’s Day dish from regions of the southern United States. The dish is made with black-eyed peas and pork bacon and is said to bring good luck to those who consume it for the new year, according to the Old Farmers Almanac.

• Choose honey-dipped apples. People can take a page from the Jewish New Year tradition, which sees celebrants dipping apples in honey for a sweet new year. Rosh Hashanah takes place in late summer or early fall because it follows the Hebrew lunisolar calendar. However, anyone can apply similar customs to the New Year’s celebrations taking place each Jan. 1.

• Put on some polka dots. In the Philippines, wearing polka-dotted clothing on New Year’s Eve is a tradition said to bring good fortune in the new year, according to Philstar Life.

• Watch a sunrise. Chances are many revelers are staying up late on New Year’s Eve and into the next day, so they’ll have ample opportunity to catch the sunrise. In Japan, watching the first sunrise of the new year is called “hatsuhinode,” and is a practice thought to bring good fortune.

• Grab some cash. There’s a perpetuating superstition that it’s better to have some extra money in your wallet to enter the New Year full of financial prosperity. Also, it’s best to wipe out any unpaid debts before Dec. 31 disappears; otherwise, the months ahead might not be financially sound.

• Counting down in Times Square. Each New Year’s Eve, thousands of revelers gather at the intersection of Seventh Avenue, Broadway and 42nd Street in the heart of New York City’s Times Square to count down the final moments of the year. Millions more watch the festivities on television. According to the official website of Times Square, people began celebrating New Year’s Eve in Times Square in 1904. However, it wasn’t until 1907 that the New Year’s Eve ball made its first descent from a flagpole atop One Times Square. The first ball was made of iron and wood and featured 100 25-watt light bulbs. Designed and operated by signmaker Jacob Starr, the initial ball weighed 700 pounds and was 5 feet in diameter. A ball has been lowered every year since 1907, except for in 1942 and 1943 in response to a wartime “dimout” of lights in NYC. Today’s Times Square ball is much larger than its ancestor. The modern ball is a geodesic sphere, 12 feet in diameter, weighing 11,875 pounds. It’s also covered with 2,688 crystal triangles that have a special sparkling pattern and are bolted to modules containing 32,256 LEDs. The Times Square ball was born out of the tradition of using a ball “dropping” to signal the passage of time. The first ball of this type was used at England’s Royal Observatory at Greenwich in 1833, dropping at one o’clock every afternoon so that ship captains could set their chronometers.