ROMANIA: superstitions on New Year’s Eve

Romanians celebrated New Year’s Eve with money in their pockets, with tables full of food and drinks, and in the end with fireworks, chasing this way the evil spirits.

The New Year’s Eve is full, everywhere in Romania, with old customs and superstitions. A New Year’s Eve related superstition says, that on the night between the years, you should be very noisy, to drive away the evil spirits. New year must find your house completely clean. On New Year’s Eve, you shouldn’t sweep the house, or you will sweep prosperity away.

Staying in the same sphere of the wealth, the habits say, until midnight, you must pay all  your debts. Not enter the New Year borrowed or remaining, avoiding so, the risk of having debts throughout the coming year. It is also imperative to have money in your pockets in the passage of the years, for you to have a favorable financial year.

At midnight, the doors will be wide open all over the house, in order to get it properly filled with luck on the New Year. Another superstition says that the object or the person you hold a hand on will be a priority in the New Year and you’ll have luck in that area. Thus, if you keep your beloved one in your arms, the night between the years, midnight especially, you will have luck in love, and if you keep some money in your hand, you will have luck on finances.

On the morning of January 1st, in a bowl, place the silver penny in the water, for all family members to wash their face. In terms of dress, habits recommended to have at least one new piece of cloth, a red one, if possible. It is considered a bad sign if, on New Year's Eve, you break plates or glasses.

The table should be full of goodies, to have a prosperous and abundant year. You also need to have candles on the table to light the year on all the levels. Most popular custom worldwide is linked to the mistletoe plant, which will be placed on the table and above the door to attract good fortune and those who meet the doorstep have to kiss, saying that it will have good luck in love relationships.

The New Year’s night is, for Romanians, a night filled with mystery and symbolism. It is the night when they put in balance their achievements, when they leave behind the bad and evil and get ready, with joy, to welcome the New Year into their lifes.

The New Year’s Eve is the threshold between two years and it’s a special time for Romanians. The food on the table is very important and it takes a lot of preparation. According to Romanian traditions, meat is a must on every table. And they also say it is wrong to eat chicken on New Year’s Eve because hens are birds that scrap the earth and throw everything in the back with their claws and thus driving luck away. Instead it is good to have pork on the table. Pigs scrub the earth with their snout always in front. The dinner will definitely be rich in wine and palinca or tuica, and many traditional dishes like, sarmale (minced meat in cabbage rolls), sausages, cookies and all sorts of goodies, because it is believed that if the New Year dinner is rich, so will the next year.

Related text: My New Year’s night in Portugal