If you’re wondering how to insure that the coming New Year brings you health, wealth, and wisdom, then you’ll want to take special note of these time-honored Italian traditions as you plan your New Year’s Eve festivities.
Of great importance is the color red, which is a symbol of life and prosperity, and therefore the luckiest of all colors. Across the Italian peninsula, New Year’s Eve tables are set with red decorations, red napkins, and red place markers. And though less immediately apparent, it’s worth knowing that many of those sitting around New Year’s Eve tables will be sporting red undergarments! Meant to insure love in the new year, red underwear and red lingerie adorn store windows in the week between Christmas and New Year’s (see photos above and below).
Fireworks will light up Rome’s sky on New Year’s Eve as they’re set off from every rooftop, bridge, and piazza (this in addition to the city-sponsored firework extravaganza). But along with such explosive “Roman candles” it’s absolutely necessary that your New Year’s table be lit with candlelight, for the use of candles insures a bright future. And because the New Year’s holiday falls in the very chilliest and darkest days of winter, there’s yet another light-producing tradition that survives in Italy - the burning of a Yule log during the twelve long nights between Christmas and Epiphany.
Since we are what we eat, the Italians also have traditional foods that are eaten on New Year’s Eve. Legend suggests that the eating of lentils will insure prosperity, perhaps because of their suggestive coin shape. In Rome, long and elaborate New Year’s meals end with a serving of lentils that is accompanied by boiled zampone (stuffed pig’s foot). It’s also a good practice to eat a pomegranate on New Year’s Eve as the hundreds of seeds inside the fruit means an association with fertility and abundance - a symbol that is often seen in Renaissance painting.
And, finally, even if your Christmas sprig of mistletoe hasn’t managed to bring love into your life just yet, don’t throw it away! Put it on your New Year’s Eve table as its milky white berries will ward off evil and misfortune for the coming year.
