How Do You Celebrate New Year’s Eve?

How different cultures spend New Year’s Eve around the world has fascinated me since living abroad as an adult. This time of year is more than just a big party for many.

In the United States, in the Northeast where I grew up, there was nothing formal or sacred about New Year’s Eve. The formal family holiday traditions of the season, where mostly Christian and Jewish traditions prevail, had already come and gone. The New Year traditions were all about partying with friends.

Most of the parties I went to were home parties. My friends would all cut loose and have a raving good time. There was always plenty of food, nothing particularly traditional. The only tradition I remember was lots of asti spumante, champagne, and any other sparkling wines we could get our hands on.

Ringing the Temple Bell 108 Times

The first year I stayed in Japan during the New Year holidays opened my eyes to a whole different way to (literally) ring in the New Year. My fourth floor corner apartment overlooked Arai Yakushi Temple in Tokyo. After falling asleep earlier, I was awakened to the sound of the temple bell ringing.

The ring of the huge Zen Buddhist temple bell sounded more like a deep gong, spaced almost a minute apart from each strike. How shocked I was to look out on a typically empty temple grounds to see crowds of people spilling out onto the streets, bonfires burning and festival lights everywhere.

As I entered the temple grounds, booths offering toshikoshi (year-end) soba, amazake (a sweet, creamy fermented rice drink) and other seasonal specialties greeted me. Inside the temple courtyard, bonfires consumed all sorts of items that people were throwing in – wooden tablets with writing on them, books, textiles, even dolls.

The dolls especially caught me by surprise. Exquisite antique baby dolls were thrown like garbage, their eyes staring out helplessly from the growing flames. My sister, like many antique collectors, would have paid a dear price for one of those dolls. Little did I understand at that time the tradition of letting go of the past and opening space for renewal. But I was talking bells, not the suspicious nature of doll spirits.

I looked over where the temple bell hung. It stood on a large permanent base with a roof for protection. A line of people started from the steps to the bell, and stretched around the platform. Smiling strangers nearby began asking me, “Did you ring it yet? Go get in line!

I stood in queue for almost a half hour waiting for my turn. The scene was mesmerizing. There was a soft excitement in the air, happy feelings of hope, peace and renewal shared by a whole community.

Then I stepped up to the great cylindrical shape, a formally robed Buddhist monk bowed to me and held out the rope attached to the huge log I was about to swing. My heart fluttered. In the five years of living over the temple, this was my first time to ring this grand bell. The sound vibrated through me as wood banged against metal.

“Feels nice, doesn’t it? You now have purification,” The monk said, smiling. I bowed in return, and stepped down with a light head and a definite exhilaration.

Still dazed, I joined others in eating, drinking and making a New Year’s wish. When I laid back down at home on my futon, I drifted off to sleep with a fresh feeling of content, allowing the slow gonging of the temple bell to lull me off to sleep.

Western Style New Year’s Eve

Besides the sacred ambiance of my experience in Japan, the great mirth of Western celebrations also stays with me. First Night in Boston, with crowded Irish pubs and singing, and First Night in Newport, Rhode Island, where two displays of firework go off, one around 9 p.m. from on side of the bay, and the other from the opposite side at the stroke of midnight.

Another New Year’s Eve party to reach my favorites list was at the end of 1998, on board a friend’s boat in Hawaii for the Parade of Sail into Honolulu Harbor. The skipper knew the owner of a nightclub on the pier, the perfect spot to tie up and listen to the band’s ongoing encores of Prince’s classic song, “Party Like it’s 1999.”

Whether a sacred tradition or a fun-filled party, New Year celebrations remain my happiest and most cherished memories. I wish for you a fun, safe, and meaningful New Year’s Eve, and the best New Year yet.