Celebrating the New Year Around the World: Fun Traditions for Families with Young Children
The New Year is a time of fresh beginnings, joy, and celebration, and it’s marked with unique traditions around the globe. For families with young children, learning about these diverse customs is a fun and engaging way to explore different cultures, foster curiosity, and build global awareness. At Language Kids World, we encourage families to celebrate cultural diversity, and the New Year is a perfect occasion to do just that! Here’s a look at some exciting New Year traditions from around the world that are family-friendly and easy to adapt for your celebrations.
Why Celebrate New Year Traditions with Kids?
Learning about global New Year traditions is more than just fun—it’s an opportunity to:
- Foster Cultural Appreciation: Introduce children to the richness of different cultures.
- Encourage Curiosity: Inspire questions about why people celebrate in different ways.
- Create Family Memories: Start your own unique traditions inspired by global customs.
Let’s explore how people around the world ring in the New Year!
- Spain: Eating Grapes for Luck – In Spain, families eat 12 grapes at the stroke of midnight—one for each chime of the clock. This tradition, called las doce uvas de la suerte (the twelve grapes of luck), is believed to bring good fortune for each month of the coming year.
Family Activity Idea: Count out 12 grapes for each family member and play a recording of clock chimes as you eat them together. Challenge your kids to eat them in time with the chimes!
Talk about what each family member hopes for in the coming months.
- Japan: Ringing Bells and Cleaning the House – In Japan, New Year’s Eve (Ōmisoka) involves ringing bells 108 times at temples to symbolize purification and letting go of past negativity. Families also clean their homes thoroughly to welcome the New Year with a fresh start.
Family Activity Idea: Have a family “clean-up day” where everyone helps tidy the house. Make it fun by playing music or turning it into a game.
Create your own version of the bell-ringing tradition by using small chimes or bells.
- Denmark: Smashing Plates – In Denmark, people smash plates against friends’ and neighbors’ doors as a way to wish them a prosperous New Year. The bigger the pile of broken dishes at your door, the more friends and good fortune you have!
Family Activity Idea: Use paper plates to create a “smashing station” where kids can safely tear or crush plates decorated with their wishes for the New Year.
Discuss how sharing joy and kindness with others can make the year special.
- Brazil: Jumping Over Waves – In Brazil, many people celebrate the New Year by heading to the beach and jumping over seven waves, making a wish with each leap. This tradition is a way to honor the ocean and attract good luck.
Family Activity Idea: If you’re near water, jump in small waves with your kids.
At home, use pillows or pool noodles to create pretend “waves” to jump over while sharing your wishes.
- Scotland: First-Footing for Good Luck – In Scotland, the first person to enter a home after midnight is called the first-footer and is thought to bring luck. Traditionally, the first-footer brings gifts like coal, bread, or whisky to ensure warmth, food, and cheer for the year ahead.
Family Activity Idea: Have a “first-footer” game where a family member “visits” the house after midnight, bringing a small gift for the family.
Talk about the importance of welcoming friends and family into your life.
- Philippines: Circles for Prosperity – In the Philippines, round shapes are a big part of New Year’s celebrations, symbolizing coins and prosperity. Families wear polka dots, serve round fruits, and use circular decorations to attract good fortune.
Family Activity Idea: Have your kids help decorate the house with circles. Use round paper cutouts or balloons.
Prepare a snack tray of round fruits like oranges, grapes, and apples.
- Mexico: Colorful Wishes with Underwear – In Mexico, people wear brightly colored underwear to attract good fortune. Red symbolizes love, yellow represents prosperity, and green brings health.
Family Activity Idea: Have fun letting your kids choose colors to represent their hopes for the New Year.
Create a colorful collage where each family member adds a symbol of their wishes.
- South Africa: New Year’s Day Parades – In Cape Town, South Africa, the Kaapse Klopse Carnival is a lively parade featuring music, dancing, and colorful costumes. The celebrations bring people together in a spirit of joy and community.
Family Activity Idea: Host a mini-parade in your living room or backyard. Dress up in bright colors, play music, and dance together.
Use simple musical instruments like tambourines or homemade shakers to add rhythm.
- Greece: Hanging Onions and Breaking Pomegranates – In Greece, onions are hung on doorways as a symbol of rebirth and growth. On New Year’s Day, families also break a pomegranate outside their door for good luck, with its many seeds symbolizing prosperity.
Family Activity Idea: Hang a symbolic “onion” (or another decorative item) on your front door to welcome the New Year.
Use a small ball to mimic the pomegranate tradition by rolling it lightly and letting kids imagine the seeds scattering for luck.
- Germany: Pouring Lead for Fortune-Telling – In Germany, people traditionally melted small pieces of lead and poured them into cold water to interpret shapes as predictions for the coming year.
Family Activity Idea: Use wax instead of lead for a safer activity. Melt crayons or candle wax and drop it into cold water, then guess what the shapes look like.
Encourage storytelling based on the shapes to spark creativity.
- China: Fireworks and Red Envelopes – While the Lunar New Year is celebrated separately in China, some families still mark the Western New Year with fireworks and small gatherings. Red envelopes containing money are also shared to wish for prosperity.
Family Activity Idea: Make your own red envelopes using construction paper and fill them with small treats or coins for the kids.
Create a safe fireworks-inspired activity with colorful confetti poppers.
- Colombia: Carrying a Suitcase – In Colombia, people walk around their neighborhood with an empty suitcase at midnight, symbolizing a year full of travel and adventure.
Family Activity Idea: Let your kids decorate a small suitcase or backpack and take a fun “travel walk” around your home or yard.
Talk about places you’d like to visit as a family in the future.
Starting Your Own New Year Traditions – Exploring global traditions can inspire your family to create unique ways to celebrate. Here are a few ideas:
Memory Jar: Write down favorite moments from the past year and read them together.
Family Resolution Board: Set family goals for the year and decorate a board to display them.
Photo Time Capsule: Take pictures or write letters to your future selves to open next New Year.
Celebrating New Year traditions from around the world is a wonderful way to introduce your children to global diversity and create meaningful family experiences. Whether you’re smashing plates like the Danish, jumping waves like the Brazilians, or ringing bells like the Japanese, each activity offers a unique opportunity to connect as a family while embracing the joy of a fresh start.
At Language Kids World, we encourage families to explore the world through language and culture. This New Year, let’s make it a celebration of togetherness, learning, and fun!
What are your favorite New Year traditions? Share them with us and join the conversation on social media!
Happy New Year from all of us at Language Kids World!
Founder and Director of Education at Language Kids.
M. Ed.
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