New Years in Austria

People the world over have been celebrating the start of each new year for at least four millennia. Festivities begin on December 31^st, the last day of the Gregorian calendar, and generally continue into the wee hours of the next morning. Wherever you ring in the New Year, it seems many traditions remain the same: parties, feasting, fireworks, kisses, and the clinking of glasses as the clock strikes midnight. And then it’s time to make resolutions for the year to come.

In Austria, New Year’s Eve is known as Sylvesterabend, the Eve of Saint Sylvester, as the date coincides with his feast day. It is a roaring good party that continues from the evening through the end of the following day. This is where my family and I have been celebrating for many years. We welcome the new year with a dinner of traditional local delights and our table is decorated minimally with potted four-leaf clovers, figurines of chimney sweeps and marzipan pigs. Pigs represent progress and prosperity in Austria, and they appear on the table, at the buffet, and nestled into our desserts. An Austrian friend remembers tales from his grandmother of the chimney sweeps in town being celebrated on New Year’s Day by having the honor of carrying a pig through the town. It was considered good luck to shake his hand as he passed. Pigs and chimney sweeps are often linked together in tradition as good luck charms.  

Our dinner ends just in time to head outdoors into the snow where we join friends and family to light fireworks and fill our glasses with champagne. Midnight brings kisses, hugs, laughter, toasts, and champagne sprays! We soon run back inside to warm up, dry off, and dance to live music, a mix of American and Austrian tunes. It’s a spectacular party that winds down with a buffet of oysters and vodka at two in the morning. A nap is in order for me, followed by a fabulous brunch, a bit more sleep, and then on to the next town over where the party begins again with the most spectacular acoustic firework display and lots of glühwein (mulled red wine). The firework effects are uniquely choreographed and synched perfectly with the music. For me, this show is one of the best firework displays on the planet (and I grew up with Fireworks by Grucci)!

When the party’s over, the only thing left to do is get started on those resolutions. I’ve always wondered where the practice began and I’m told it started with the Babylonians (it’s all beginning to make sense now). They made promises to earn the favor of the gods and start the year off on the right foot. It is a time of rebirth, the chance to start anew and, after the indulgences of the holiday season, we all seem to start the year off with the same intentions: losing weight, seeing family more often, or learning something new.

Too often our ideas of what we should change are too broad and never seem to happen. Several years ago my friend Michael Reiter was quoted in the Palm Beach Post as saying if anything is so important to change, why wait for the new year to do it? I’ve taken his advice and started my resolutions early this year, set with small, achievable goals. So for this New Year’s my only vow is that I resolve to rush more slowly through life, hopefully allowing time to enjoy the practices I felt were important enough to put in place before the new year. Cheers!