New Year's Eve traditions and customs
When one year hands over to the next, people everywhere like to mark the moment with something small: a song, a swept floor, a knock at the door. These customs are old ways of saying goodbye to what has been and of greeting what comes, and many families keep them simply because their grandparents did.
The sky on New Year's Eve 2026
At midnight the Moon is in Libra, 38% lit and waning. The calendar year is a human measure, but it is set against the sky: the earth goes once round the sun, and the moon passes through its phases about twelve times along the way. On New Year's Eve you might step outside before the bells and see where the moon stands as the old year ends.
The customs
First-footing
Scotland, and wherever Scots settled
The first person to cross your threshold after midnight is the first-foot, and by custom it should be a tall, dark-haired man. He brings small gifts: a piece of coal for the fire, salt, shortbread or black bun, and a dram of whisky. The gifts are said to stand for warmth, food and good cheer in the house for the year ahead, and a first-foot who arrives empty-handed is thought to bring poor luck.
The preference for a dark stranger is often explained as a memory of the Viking age, when a fair-haired visitor at the door meant trouble.
Redding the house
Scotland
Before the bells, many Scottish households give the home a thorough clean, known as redding the house. Traditionally the ashes were cleared from the fireplace and a fresh fire laid, debts were paid and borrowed things returned. The idea is to start the new year with nothing of the old one left lying about.
To redd is an old Scots word for tidying or putting in order.
Singing Auld Lang Syne
Scotland first, now across the English-speaking world
Just after midnight, people join hands in a circle and sing Auld Lang Syne, a song about old friends sharing a drink and remembering times long past. In Scotland it closes Hogmanay; in America it became the sound of midnight through radio and television broadcasts. Most people know only the first verse and the chorus, and that is enough.
Robert Burns wrote the words down in 1788, drawing on older versions of the song, and Scottish emigrants carried it around the world in the nineteenth century.
New Year's resolutions
Throughout the English-speaking world
Many people take the turn of the year as a moment to resolve to change something: to walk more, spend less, write more letters or learn something new. Some write their resolutions down and keep them, others quietly let them go by February. Either way, the custom asks you to look back at the year behind you and decide what you would like to carry forward.
Historians trace the habit to the Babylonians, who made promises to their gods at the new year festival, and to the Romans, who made promises to Janus, the two-faced god who gave January its name.
Waiting for the bongs of Big Ben
United Kingdom
Across Britain, people fall quiet in the last seconds of the year to hear the great bell in the Elizabeth Tower at Westminster strike twelve on radio or television. The first stroke is the moment glasses are raised and the fireworks over the Thames begin. For many families the bongs are the year's true dividing line.
On New Year's Eve 1923 a BBC engineer held a microphone up on a roof opposite Parliament, and the chimes have been broadcast at the new year ever since.
The ball drop in Times Square
New York, watched across the United States
In the final minute of the year, an illuminated ball descends a pole above Times Square while the crowd below and millions at home count down the last ten seconds aloud. When it comes to rest, the new year has begun.
The first ball, of iron and wood with a hundred light bulbs, came down in 1907, and it has been lowered every year since apart from the wartime years of 1942 and 1943.
A kiss at midnight
Throughout the English-speaking world
When the clock strikes twelve, couples kiss, and friends and family hug or kiss one another on the cheek. It is a way of beginning the year close to the people you care about.
One early printed mention, from New York in 1863, describes German revellers passing round hearty kisses at the stroke of midnight.
Bread on the walls, and a door for each year
Ireland, and Irish families abroad
On Oíche Chinn Bliana, the night of the year's end, Irish families once struck the doors and walls of the house with Christmas bread to chase out bad luck and invite good spirits in. At midnight some still open the back door to let the old year out and the front door to let the new one in, or walk in through the front and out through the back. A place was often set at the table for those who had died during the year, with the door left on the latch.
These are old rural customs, recorded over the centuries and still kept in some homes today.
Calennig
Wales
On New Year's morning, Welsh children went from door to door singing short verses and wishing the household a happy new year, and were given coins or bread and cheese in return. Many carried an apple stuck with three sticks and decorated with a sprig of box and hazelnuts.
The word comes from the Latin calends, the first day of the month, and the custom was most widely recorded in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Black-eyed peas and greens
The American South
On New Year's Day many Southern households sit down to black-eyed peas, often cooked with rice and pork as Hoppin' John, with collard greens and cornbread beside them. The peas are said to stand for coins, the greens for paper money and the cornbread for gold.
The dish draws on West African cooking brought to the Carolinas by enslaved people, mixed with Sephardic Jewish and Anglo-American food customs.
The New Year's Day swim
Canada, the United States and Scotland
On the first day of January, crowds in fancy dress run into cold seas and lakes and, mostly, straight back out again. In Vancouver thousands plunge into English Bay, and similar dips take place from Coney Island to the Firth of Forth, where it is called the Loony Dook. People say it clears the head and starts the year with a shock of fresh air.
Peter Pantages and a few friends began the Vancouver polar bear swim in 1920.
The Rose Parade
Pasadena, California
On New Year's morning, floats covered entirely in flowers, seeds and bark roll down Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena, with marching bands and horses between them. Families camp along the route the night before to keep their place. The parade is followed by the Rose Bowl football game.
The Valley Hunt Club held the first Tournament of Roses in 1890 to show off California's mild winter, and the parade is never held on a Sunday.
The Mummers Parade
Philadelphia
On New Year's Day, Philadelphia's mummers' clubs march through the city in feathers and sequins, with string bands playing as they go. The clubs spend much of the year making their costumes and compete for prizes in comic, string band and fancy groups. For many families in the city it is how the year properly begins.
The parade grows out of older neighbourhood customs of masked visiting and noise-making at the new year, and the city has sponsored it as an official parade since 1901.
Fireworks over Sydney Harbour
Sydney, Australia, and across Australia and New Zealand
Because Australia and New Zealand are among the first places to reach midnight, their fireworks are often the first ones the rest of the world sees. In Sydney, more than a million people gather around the harbour, and there are two shows: a family display at nine in the evening and the main display at midnight from the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House. Many towns across both countries hold an early show for the same reason.
The early show is there for families who would rather not keep small children up until midnight.
These are customs passed down by families and communities, kept for their warmth and meaning, not promises of what the year will bring.