Looking for a new way to welcome the New Year?

Spaniards wear red underwear during New Year celebrations to bring in tidings of good luck to the coming year. During the New Year’s Eve celebrations you will enjoy the usual family dinner of shrimp and turkey or lamb as the countdown to midnight is closely followed from striking clocks in town squares. Once the clock strikes midnight the toasting and drinking will start. You can bet that most of those people toasting sparkling wine and champagne will be in red panties and bras from Chantelle at Harrods. For the Spaniards both eating of grapes and wearing of red underwear on New Year’s Eve symbolize good luck in the coming year. I believe the idea is to try to eat a grape for each stroke of the clock. For each grape you gulp down, you get one month of good luck. If you don't choke, of course.

In Font de la Figuera, the celebration includes a run through town in your red undies. This sounds like the  Santa Speedo Runs in Boston and other places in the States and Canada. (Note the two Jewish gentlemen wearing Menorah hats in the Boston photo.)

Italians claim that their own tradition of wearing red underwear for the New Year dates back to at least the Middle Ages. The legend is that men draped their privates in red to protect themselves and their future progeny from witches who roamed the streets as the New Year began to do mischief. Red is a lucky color, associated with the Archangel Michael, who defeated Satan in heavenly combat. He is considered the patron of warriors, police officers and firefighters. And of red jock straps, I guess.