Pass the grapes, it’s New Year’s

THE beginning of a new year has been celebrated in some manner for more than five millennia. Most rituals that accompany the holiday are intended to symbolically purge the old year or to ensure good times in the new one.

In Venezuela people give each other yellow underwear to wear into the new year for good luck.

In Britain the first person to cross the threshold on New Year’s Day is considered to be a harbinger of the household’s luck for the year. Tradition holds that the “first foot” should belong to a tall, healthy, strapping, dark-haired man, carrying symbols of abundance for the home: coal for the fire, bread for the table and whiskey for the head of the household.