Section 224 New-Year’s Eve (S. 152, N. 1) in Germany
New-Year’s Eve is also favoured with a peculiar celebration1 in Germany. Everybody remains up and makes himself merry until midnight. The Christmas trees are again lighted, and while the tapers are burning out, the family play for2 articles which they have purchased and hung on the boughs. It is so arranged that each one shall win as much as he gives, and the change3 of articles creates much amusement. One of the ladies rejoiced in the possession of a red silk handkerchief and a cake of soap, while a cup and saucer and a pair of scissors fell to my lot. As midnight drew near, the noise became louder in the streets, and companies of people, some of them4 singing in chorus, passed by on their way to the Zeil5. Finally, it struck a quarter to twelve, the windows were opened, and every one waited anxiously for the clock to strike twelve. At the first sound, such a cry arose as one may imagine when thirty or forty thousand persons all set their lungs going6 at once. Everybody in the house, in the street, over the whole city, shouted: “Prost Neujahr7!”
In families, all the members embrace each other, with wishes of happiness for the new year. Then the windows are thrown open, and they cry to their neighbours or those passing by.
After we had exchanged congratulations, three of us set out for the Zeil. The streets were full of people, shouting to one another and to those standing at the open windows. We failed not to cry: “Prost Neujahr!” wherever we saw a damsel at the window, and the words came back to us more musically than we sent them. Along the Zeil the spectacle was most singular. The great wide street was filled with companies of men, marching up and down, while from the mass rang up one deafening, unending shout, that seemed to pierce the black sky above. The whole scene looked stranger and wilder in the flickering light of the swinging lamps8, and I could not help thinking it must resemble a night in Paris, during the French Revolution.—Bayard Taylor, “Views Afoot.”
Notes
1 is — celebration = is celebrated in (auf) a peculiar way.
2 um.
3 Tausch or Austausch, m.
4 = of whom some were.
5 die Zeil is one of the principal streets in Frankfort a/M.
6 to set going, in Bewegung setzen.
7 Properly: Prosit Neujahr! A happy New-Year to you!
8 Before the introduction of gas, the lamps hung in the middle of the street on ropes which were attached to the houses on both sides of the street.