Here's to 2020!

On New Year's Eve, people all over the world have celebrations and customs to ensure a good year to come. Each country has its own unique traditions which may seem pretty strange to other people. For a taste of what your neighbors may be doing, check these out!

• It's considered good luck in England to have your first visitor be a young, dark-haired man bringing symbolic gifts like bread, salt, and coal. So make sure you invite someone like that and tell them the party starts earlier so they're the first one through the door!
• Oshogatsu is a family celebration in Japan that involves cleaning and, for some, decorating the house with pine branches, plum blossoms, and bamboo.
• Some people in South Africa do a serious housecleaning, throwing old furniture and appliances from their windows.
• In a less destructive custom, some people in Denmark break dishes on their friends' front doorsteps. The more broken dishes you have by the door, the more friends you have.
• In Turkey, the color red is considered lucky, so many wear red underwear at midnight on New Year’s Eve. In Brazil, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Venezuela, however, different colors of underwear bring different things: red for love, yellow for money, green for good luck, and so on. 
• Jumping off a chair at midnight in Denmark symbolizes jumping forward into the new year and leaving bad things behind. You have to have a lot of chairs at a big party!
• Finally, many people across the English-speaking world (and beyond) sing “Auld Lang Syne” at midnight. It's an old Scottish song that means "old long since", or long ago. At the end of the song, party-goers raise a toast to old friends and new ones to come.

So at midnight on December 31, wherever you are, think of your world neighbors wearing colored underwear or jumping off chairs, or maybe throwing a refrigerator out a window, and wish us all a good New Year!