New Year the Finnish Way
 Finland in winter - a view from Vammalan lukio |
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New Year?s Eve is not a carnival in Finland. According to news, restaurants are not busier on New Year?s Eve than on normal weekends. Finns celebrate New Year?s Eve together with friends and/or family in homes eating well, casting tin in open fireplaces (a normal stove is OK if no fireplaces), drinking sparkling wine at midnight and having fireworks. A lot of people buy fireworks which they send into the night sky around midnight. Big cities have their official fireworks displays and the turn of the year is televised from the great square in Helsinki with speeches and ?Maamme?, the national anthem. A lot of people watch this in their homes. Also some concerts and dances are arranged.
The casting of tin is an old tradition and the tins are always of horse shoe shape because they are supposed to bring good luck. When the molten tin has been thrown into cold water or a bucket full of soft snow (the movement has to be quick) it is picked up and the shape of the shadow it casts on the wall is interpreted as a kind of forecast of what the new year will bring - travel, love, money etc.
CASTING THE TINS | | Horse Shoes for melting down into "tins" |
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| | Preparing to cast the tins |
| | | A cast tin. What can be read into its shadow? |
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| | Everyone present will have their own tin and have their "fortune" told. |
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