How do you welcome the New Year? I know you’d say we have to start the New Year with a bang! For Filipinos there are a lot of traditions that need to be followed to welcome the New Year.
In our home, we follow the 12 sets of round fruits (sometimes husband would make it 13 or 14!) they said that the whole year will be fruitful if you have this on your table. We also have grains on the table like salt, rice and monggo (mung beans). It’s also a good luck to place some coins on the table. No chicken please. They said that chicken’s life is ‘isang kahig,isang tuka’ and you don’t want that to happen to your life. We also have different sweet desserts and chocolates, they said this will make your life sweeter the whole year round.
Some usually welcomes the year with firecrackers, they said this will keep the bad spirits away. We don’t dare try firecrackers so we content ourselves with fountains and watching fireworks on TV. Filipinos place grapes on doors and windows, this is another sign of luck.
It’s not bad to follow traditions, somehow they make life exciting but the most important thing to welcome the year right is on having your faith at home.
