1. Don’t eat chicken on New Year’s Eve/Day. Instead, eat twelve round fruits at the stroke of midnight at the end of the year.
New Year’s traditions are all about setting the tone for the next year. It’s widely believed that whatever you do or possess on New Year’s Eve will dominate your life for the following year.
Symbolism plays a huge role in the selection of food for the New Year’s Eve dinner. We all know how chickens eat: they’re forced to putter about digging through the dirt each time they get hungry. Feasting on one come the first of January puts diners at the risk of a difficult year ahead, forced to work hard for each mouthful. Round fruits, on the other hand, signify nature’s bounty. Their shape represents continuity, so eating twelve of them is supposed to mean abundance and prosperity the whole year round.