Filipino Traditions on New Year

Twelve kinds of round fruits should be in your table by midnight to bring good luck and prosperity to the Household When I was growing up in the Philippines, my parents will tell us kids that on New Years Eve and Day, we should do the following for good luck. Doing these things will help insure that the coming year will be a happy and prosperous one. Many of these traditions and superstition are of Chinese influence, I believe. 1. Turn on all lights so that the coming year will be bright. 2. Make as much noise as you can to scare away evil spirits. 3. Debts must be paid off. Fill you wallet with fresh peso bills. 4. Open all doors, windows, cabinets and drawers to let good fortune in. 5. Scatter coins around the house, on tabletops.... inside drawers... 6. Clean everything including your body by taking a long bath, the closets and the whole house. 7. Wear polka-dots, preferably black and white. Anything round signifies prosperity. 8. Jump twelve times at midnight to increase your height. (Observed by Filipino children.) There are five things related to food that we must do for good luck as follows: 1. Prepare 12 round fruits, one for each month of the coming new year ( see photo above). 2. Have a very round grape in your mouth at the stroke of midnight. 3. Eat a native delicacy made from sticky rice to make good fortune stick in the new year. 4. Eat long noodles (pancit) for long life ( definitely of Chinese origin). We should eat pancit also during our birthday. 5. Don't eat any chicken or fish. They are associated with the scarcity of food. Then on New Years Day we should not clean anything, otherwise we might sweep away the good fortune. In addition we should not spend money at all. Our being thrifty that day will help us manage our money very well for the whole year. Do you have any New Years Eve tradition in your family? Please share! Happy 2014 to All of You, my dear readers and FaceBook Friends!