Cheers, Happy New Year!
People hold glasses of champagne as they celebrate in the waters of Lake Geneva in Geneva, during the New Year's traditional bath, on 1 January 2015. Around 50 swimmers took part in the 21st edition of the traditional bath to mark the New Year.
Many of us celebrate the arrival of a new year with a glass of fizz, a plate of food and some fireworks, but communities around the world will ring in 2016 with a number of weird and wonderful traditions and celebrations – from organised fighting in the Peruvian Andes to mass grape-eating in Spain. Ahead of the New Year, we look at some of the most unusual festivities.
Hogmanay fireball swingers illuminate the streets of Stonehaven carrying on the tradition of welcoming the new year in Scotland.
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Forgo unusual celebrations and consider a few of these alternative resolutions.
Get your photo taken in five interesting places
If you’ve got the travel bug and want to see a bit more of the world, why not make it a New Year’s resolution to visit five interesting places you’ve always wanted to see? Even better, make a visual record of the year by making sure you get a photo of yourself taken in each place. Good photo opportunities include inside an igloo in Lapland, on the Great Wall of China, inside a volcanic crater or floating in the Dead Sea, but use your imagination to think of your own – the world’s your oyster after all.
Learn something you never learned as a child
You may run your own company, pay your own bills and parallel-park like a pro, but do you know how to do a handstand or ride a bike? For this New Year’s resolution it’s time to nurture your inner child and learn that thing that you never learned to do. Whether it’s the number of days in each month, how to spell ‘necessary’ correctly, how to ride a bike or swim, we all have something we never learned as a child that everyone else seems to know. Set this to rights and have some fun at the same time by redressing this gap in your knowledge. Your younger self would be proud!
Try a new food each week
Rather than cutting out foods from your diet as with so many New Year’s resolutions, opt to add more foods in to your diet next year instead (bonus points if they’re green!). Many of us don’t eat a varied enough diet, so ensure you are getting all the nutrients your body needs – as well as enhancing your enjoyment of food – by making a resolution to try a new food each week. Try hitting the fruit and veg aisle first to sample some exotic fruit and vegetables you may have yet to try, such as dragon fruit, lychees, romanescu and plantain.
Two Romanian children dressed as bears dance with a band in Bucharest. Romanians dress themselves up with bear costumes during Christmas and New Year celebrations, to perform traditional dances believed to bring good luck and wealth in the next year.