Happy New Year

[Eva Elisabeth]

(01-01-2016 07:54 PM)RJNorton Wrote:  Eva, all I remember as a kid growing up involved fireworks, fireworks, and more fireworks!!! When I was really young I still have fond memories of sparklers, spinners, and snakes. I remember the New Year's Eve fireworks' shows the parents on our block would put on. We kids loved it. I really wasn't interested in celebrating the new year in any other way than the thrill of fireworks. Other than fireworks I do not recall any other specific New Year's traditions in my family.

Thanks, Roger - are there no fireworks anymore? Fireworks is here, too, the paramount thing people do at midnight. Additionally where I live, ferries and ships blow their tyfons for one minute at midnight. (And originally the fireworks were another "Glücksbringer", respectively to scare evil spirits off.)

(01-01-2016 08:19 PM)Anita Wrote:  Happy New Year from SoCal, home of the Rose Parade and the Rose Bowl. Watching the Parade and the Rose Bowl football game is an American tradition.

Here's an interesting bit of trivia, an American tradition of dropping objects on New Year's Eve. Check out some of the objects dropped by state! https://en.wikipedia.org/.../List_of_obj...n_New_Y...

These are for you Roger. Brooksville, Florida: A 200-pound tangerine was dropped 40 feet during the countdown to midnight until 2009.[3][4][5] The tangerine dropped was an emblem of the citrus industry that once thrived in Brooksville.
Fort Lauderdale, Florida: A ball is dropped.[6]
Key West, Florida (Sloppy Joe's Bar): The Key West Conch Drop, where a six-foot Queen Conch Shell drops 20 feet to the top of the bar to usher in the New Year, is held annually for the island's official New Year celebrations.

Another tradition is signing into the forum to start the year off right !!

Super interesting, Anita - thanks!!! And I sure agree on the forum!

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As for the symbols - now are there any symbols of luck? (Germans really do have a lot.)