41 Unique Ways New Year's Eve Is Celebrated Around the World

In Spain, you better have some grapes on hand.

In Brazil, be sure to collect white flowers.

In Italy, break out your red underwear.

New Year's Eve is the annual chance to wash off one year and ring in the new, complete with resolutions and traditions. And from country to country, they vary in interesting ways.

Here are 41 unique ways New Year's Eve is celebrated around the globe.

Some people like to go out with friends, some people like to go out with hundreds of thousands of friends-looking at you, Times Square, New York City-and some people like to keep it simple and quiet at home. But no matter what you do, tradition in the U.S. calls for kissing the one you love at the stroke of midnight.

This is where you need to hit the fruit market and make sure you have grapes on hand. At midnight, it is tradition to eat 12 grades. Well, since you need to eat them every second after midnight, it's more like stuffing your mouth. Nonetheless, the 12 grapes are for each month of the year and represent warding off bad luck in the new year.

Fire is the theme here. Bonfires are set to help cleanse the past year and start fresh. More importantly, the country lifts its nationwide ban on fireworks for the week leading up to New Year's Eve, meaning it's a celebration that rivals the U.S. July 4 holiday.

New Year's Eve is the biggest holiday celebration in Russia, by far. Red Square is Moscow's version of Times Square although, curiously, the music and the madness and the martinis and the fireworks are just starting at midnight instead of leading up to it.

Big Ben, baby. At midnight, the great clocktower chimes for tens of thousands of folks who fill the banks of the River Thames for a grand fireworks display. More importantly, lore has it that the first guest to enter your home in Great Britain should be a young male bearing gifts, so as to ensure prosperity in the new year.

You would think this is more of a Greek tradition but the Danes love to save up their unwanted, unused glass items all year. Then they break them against the front doors of family and friends on New Year's Eve. The symbolism is not difficult to understand-destroying the glasses is akin to destroying the problems of the past year.

You pack for a trip. In Colombia, they unpack-at least for New Year's Eve. The tradition in Colombia is to carry an empty suitcase around your block and wish for a new year that is filled with travel.

Two traditions here. One is to throw white flowers in the ocean as an offering to Yemania, goddess of the sea, and hope she will grant your wish. The second is to eat lentils to wish for good fortune in the near year.

You want unique, this is it. Tradition here calls for people to throw on real bear skins and party through the streets to ring in the new year. The tradition is called 'Ursul' and is believed to help ward off evil spirits.

A couple of traditions. One is the fire festival in Stonehaven, where professionals swing literal balls of fire over their heads and launch them into the sea, a tradition believed to purify the soul heading into the new year. In a newer tradition, once the old year turns into the new year the Scots like to dress up in their finest-and jump into the Firth of Forth in Edinburgh and take a swim. Kind of like a Polar Bear Plunge with fancy attire.

Another cool tradition. The Fins like to put molten tin into a container of water and watch as the final shape forms after hardening. They then try to interpret the shape to predict what will happen in the new year-a ring could mean a wedding, an animal means they'll never go hungry, a boat or plane means travel.

Yeah, uh, if you're something of a celebrity you really don't want to be burned in effigy. Except here. To usher in the new year, it's tradition to burn celebrities and politicians in effigy to ward away evil spirits.

Two more for the Italians. One is to wear red underwear, given that red is the color of love. Seems reasonable. The second is to throw furniture out the window. No, seriously. In Naples, tossing out old furniture and appliances is supposed to symbolize your parting with the old and embracing the new.

An onion is the central character of Greek New Year's. First, it is hung on the front door on New Year's Eve to mark a rebirth for all. On January 1, parents take the onion down from the door and wake their kids by gently tapping the onion on the children's heads.

You've heard of hanging mistletoe during the Christmas holidays, right? Well in Ireland, folks place mistletoe under their pillows on New Year's to bring luck in love.

Round shapes are supposed to mean prosperity. So on New Year's Eve, folks in the Philippines do just about anything to be surrounded by round shapes, including one very popular tradition-dressing in polka dots.

The French are a bit snooty and so is their New Year's Eve tradition. In order to bring in the new year with wealth, many in France opt for an over-the-top party with such delicacies as oysters, goose and foie gras-and wash it down with French champagne, of course.

The name of the country might have changed from Burma to Myanmar, but the traditions remain. That includes the New Year's ritual-held in April, not January-of the Thingyan water festival. If you'd like to take part, just note that you'll be soaked. The festival signifies the washing away of sins from the previous year.

In Tulca, Chile, people believe that the souls of their departed family and friends come alive on New Year's Eve. So the living bring food and drink and spend the night in the cemetery to share it with the souls of the dead.

Divers are the stars of the show here. Not cliff divers. Oh no, these divers get underneath frozen lakes like Baikal Lake and plant trees underneath as a symbol of starting anew.

Now this is our kind of tradition-donuts. On New Year's Eve, Germans are known to eat "krapfen" or donuts filled with jam or chocolate on the inside, and icing on the outside.

Red is the most popular color to the Chinese, who celebrate New Year's in February. So on the night before, doors are painted red or red decorations are placed in the windows as a plea to bring good luck in the new year.

Pink underwear. We're not kidding. Argentinians wear it for good luck over the New Year's holiday.

The traditional bell-ringing takes place on New Year's Eve, a Japanese tradition that dates back centuries. Bells are rung 108 times to represent each of the worldly sins of the Buddhist religion.

Pomegranates. Pomegranates? Yep, Pomegranates. In Turkey, cutting one open on New Year's Eve is good luck to bring wealth in the coming year. In Armenia, they throw them on the ground. The more pomegranate pieces and seeds that spread on the ground, the better your luck for the new year.

A literal cleansing is the tradition here. Puerto Ricans clean their homes from top to bottom, their cars, the outside of their homes, and then they take the buckets of water and throw them out the window to truly get rid of any bad vibes from the previous year.

OK, OK so this is technically in the U.S. And, in fact, depending on where you are in Louisiana, the new year is celebrated in different ways-some wildly, some subdued. But one thing is certain. No matter where you are, black-eyed peas and cabbage is what you're eating to help bring money and good luck for the new year.

New Year's means a new start, so in Vietnam, they shed their old clothes and wear brand new duds to ring in the holiday. That is, the clothes themselves are new as in never worn, but the outfit is strictly traditional Vietnamese called ao dai.

Amsterdam is the place to be and oliebollen is the thing to eat. While partying in the Netherlands, tradition dictates that eating oliebollen-translated as "oily balls" but merely more like Italian-style fried dough balls-at midnight brings you good luck and keeps the evil spirits away.

This is one of the more strange ones. Nobody truly knows how it started, and nobody truly knows what it signifies. But at the crack of dawn on New Year's Day, farmers in Belgium get up and head outside to wish their cows and other domesticated animals a Happy New Year.

It's called Kaliady in Belarus, and Kaliady is a partier's dream-13 days of celebrations in a tradition that originally started as paying homage to the winter solstice but now encompasses the solstice, Christmas and New Year's.

Oh boy. You better be a foodie of a different kind to enjoy New Year's Eve in Estonia. Local legend has it that the numbers 7, 9 and 12 are considered good luck, so Estonians eat 7, 9 or 12 meals on New Year's Eve. Accomplishing that feat means prosperity will come in the new year.

Ever hear of the Takanakuy Festival. Perhaps best that you don't. This New Year's, um, festival, involves people literally beating the crap out of each other in the ring in bare-knuckle bouts. The fights are supposed to signal a fresh start to the new year.

While the rest of Italy is running around in red drawers and throwing furniture out the window, tens of thousands are gathering in Piazza San Marco in Venice to kiss under the fireworks at midnight. It's a rite of passage to kiss in Venice for tourists and locals alike.

Most people usher in the new year with a toast. So do the Swiss. But instead of clinking glasses, they drop ice cream on the floor. No, really. Even Haagen-Dazs.

There's a great tradition adopted by many cultures, including the Bolivians. And that is, they bake a penny into a dessert and whoever finds the coin has good luck for the new year.

When you sit down to dinner in Austria on New Year's Eve, there's only one selection on the menu-suckling pig. Austrians love it and they consider it a good luck charm.

New Year's Eve is a loud holiday. It's especially loud when you walk through the streets at midnight banging pots and pans, a tradition practiced in many countries in communities like Australia.

Here's another one that takes a little bit of imagination. In El Salvador, residents crack an egg in a glass at midnight and leave it on the window sill until the morning. Whatever figure that egg takes on-and it takes some interpretation-will be your fortune for the new year.

A great tradition here. At midnight, everyone must make a list of all the bad-and the good-that happened during the course of the year. The lists are then burned as a way of saying goodbye and starting anew.

In virtually all of the English-speaking world, midnight on New Year's Eve means singing "Auld Lang Syne." The practice dates back to 1783 as a traditional Scottish folk song, loosely translated as "old long since."