New Years traditions: discuss

[Hypatia Agnesi]

A livejournal post by a friend of mine brought this question to mind, and I thought I would ask it here since we have people from several different parts of the world represented.

The question is this: What do you do to mark the start of a new year (ideally at midnight)?

Obviously most of the east coast of the US watches the ball drop in Time Square, and I know we on the west coast generally tune into a rebroadcast of the same thing 3 hours later, but what else do people do? My friend claims that apparently in Britain it's common to watch Big Ben get to midnight, but is this true, and is it exciting?

Post away!

[andelarion]

This new year I went to our town's main square with my brother and friends. It felt like half of Kumla was there. But it wasn't good. Drunk kids were everywhere having "fun". But there was a stage and an old man sang O Holy Night (in Swedish of course).

At 12 o'clock the bells started ringing and people cheered. I wished my brother and my friends a happy new year and the fireworks started.

The fireworks weren't good either :-p

So that's a tradition in Kumla - to go downtown.

Another tradition is to have a private party at home and that 10 to 10 put the TV on and a famous actor will read the Swedish version of one of Tennyson's poems.

It's quite a good poem in Swedish, but the English version is sort of bad :-P

[H4773r 3lfs0n]

i have a few that are personal, less than personal, and one a little bit something else.
I watch the ball drop, everyone counting along (even though it actually happened three hours ago) then you shout HAPPY NEW YEAR and its customary to kiss someone.

In addition to this, i have my first drink of the year (until next year usually a bottle of Bawls) and I howl at the moon (if one is present).

One thing my grandmother has us do, to ensure a prosperous new year, you have to have a bowl of black eyed peas (prepared of course, but the majority of the dish needs to consist of the bean) this is a good luck meal passed down from a very good friend of the family.

thats about it.

[dr-spangle]

i do pritty much nothing, wait till it's new year, set off part poppers and stuff, hide party poppers and latedissect them to remove the explosives

[Neike Taika-Tessaro]

Each year since 2001, I insist on listening to some track of Apollo Four Forty's, typically Millennium Fever (which is somewhat ironic), draping the track right over the midnight mark, a bit like a band-aid.

Since this year, I have a new tradition: a shot of amaretto. But then, that's an every day tradition (currently), so I'm not sure I can count it specifically as a New Year's ritual.

What it boils down to, though, is staying at home, avoiding the drunks, and getting mildly delerious on music. So, it's definitely more of a personal thing.

[Conglacio]

most people watch big ben...

I look out the window at the fireworks and cry

[Erik Mortis]

MEAD!