By Kaliga Rice
People around the world observe New Year’s Day in a variety of exciting ways. In the United States, people typically celebrate by attending parties, eating a certain food to bring good luck, and counting down the seconds until the new year. At Hartselle High School (HHS), Spanish teacher Señor Willingham teaches the students in his Spanish classes about the New Year’s traditions of Spanish-speaking countries.
One of the most well-known traditions that Sr. Will taught his students about this year is eating twelve grapes at midnight on New Year’s Day. Spaniards practice this particular tradition to bring good luck to their new year. Eating the twelve grapes often begins the new year with humor, as people shove the grapes in their mouths one after the other, which typically results in fits of laughter.
In Columbia, people run around the block with empty suitcases in hopes of traveling during the new year. To emulate this tradition, students ran around the school hallway with their backpacks. Peruvian residents place three potatoes--one completely peeled, one partially peeled, and one unpeeled--under a chair. At midnight on New Year’s Day, someone retrieves a potato without looking. The completely peeled potato symbolizes a year with no money, the partially peeled potato symbolizes a normal year, and the unpeeled potato symbolizes prosperity. Spanish classes observed this tradition with some students blindly retrieving a potato. Throwing a bucket of water out of a window originated in Puerto Rico. This practice symbolizes removing “bad energy” from homes and beginning the new year with a fresh start. Some students threw water out of the classroom window to observe this tradition.
Practicing the New Year’s traditions of Spanish-speaking countries was an interesting way for students to learn about different countries while having fun, and it also added a bit of culture to HHS.
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