One of the joys in doing cultural exchange is SHARE!-ing with one another the customs in how we celebrate the holidays. See how some of our students celebrate the new year!
Son Thai (Vietnam)
We celebrate New Year in 8 days. Three days before New Year Day, we prepare and decorate the house for New Year. Then in New Year Eve, our family have dinner together and wait until midnight to watch fireworks. In New Year Day, people always go to their relatives and their friends to give them wishes. Children and elder people receive “lucky money” or sometimes is gift. People go to the market in these day but most of them go before New Year Day.
We do this in next 5 days. For me, New Year is one of the funniest and happiest holidays. We have more activities but I can’t remember all of them to tell you . I will tell you more about it when I remember somethings else. Here are some pictures about our New Year.
Theo (Belgium)
When it's about the New Year and the New Year's Eve in Belgium everybody do it a bit different. But there is one main thing about New Year that's the same for most of the people: we get together!! No matter it's with your family or with your friends we celebrate New Year's Eve with people and we wait till midnight to wish everybody a happy New Year. What I usually do is sending a message to the people(friends and family) that are not with me at this moment to wish them a happy New Year. When we get together for the Eve and we eat a big meal. Then on January first a lot of people eat sauerkraut and the custom is to put a piece of money under the plate to bring luck on the coming year. On my side I usually celebrate the New Year's Eve with my friends and the New Year's day with my family eating sauerkraut and I really like these days.