How to Celebrate New Year's Eve Italian Style

Celebrate New Year's like an Italian!

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By deepthinkin
eHow Community Member

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Like people in the United States, Italians love to bring the New Year in with a bash! Read on for favorite Italian traditions.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Step 1

Without good food, a New Year's celebration is just not a celebration! In Italy a traditional dish served on New Years is: lentils. Yep, you heard right. Lentils are a symbol of good fortune and money for the New Year. Also symbolizing the abundance in life is pork which comes in the form of a cotechino, a large spiced sausage, or a zampone, stuffed pig's trotter.
Step 2

Another New Year's tradition is a family game similar to Bingo, called Tombola, which is a load of fun. The difference in this game is in bingo you can play vertically, horizontally and diagonally, in Tombola only horizontal plays count.
Step 3

Sparkling wine is a must for the strike of 12:00, spumante or prosecco is the drink of choice. Also, be prepared to stay up till sunrise to see the first sun of the New Year. So you might as well wile the hours away with good music and dancing; another favorite in Italy.
Step 4

Here’s another old custom that a lot of us should get into and that is to toss out your old things to be ready for the new in the coming year. The actual custom, mostly in Southern Italy is to throw these things out the window, but that could cause problems for passersby.
Step 5

Red underwear is the thing to do to ring in the New Year! It’s said to bring you luck in the coming year.

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