Spain: All throughout Spain, people welcome the New Year by quickly eating 12 grapes. Revelers congregate in major squares in their locale to gobble a grape per second as they count down the last 12 seconds of the year. The tradition signifies good luck for each month of the New Year.
Phillipines: From wearing polka dot designs to stocking up on round fruits, eating grapes, and tossing coins around a pan as they march around the house, Filipinos keep everything round for the New Years. This is believed to bring good fortune and prosperity to your household.
Ecuador: Ecuadorians usher in the New Year by scaring away bad luck when they burn a newspaper-stuffed-scarecrow outside their homes. The burning tradition is said to burn away the bad things of the prior year and scare bad luck away from the coming next year to pave the way for nothing but good luck.
Denmark: Throughout the year, Danes save their old dishes to throw them by the dozen at the doorsteps of family friends on New Years. In theory, the bigger the pile of broken dishes you find on your doorsteps, the bigger pile of friends you have.
Scotland: New Years' Eve is called Hogmanay, which loosely translates to "great love day" in Scotland. As it is, the first song that everyone sings after toasting is the old Scottish classic "For Auld Lang Syne." Bonfires are set, and locals parade around town swinging poles with fireballs to purify the incoming year. Scots also religiously follow the tradition of "the first-footing." To bring in good luck for the new year, the first visitor to step their foot in your door on New Years should be tall, dark and bearing coal, shortbread, salt, black bun and whisky. This is apparently a throwback to the Viking days, when locals would evade their rude blonde-haired visitors.
