New Year is celebrated here with pleasure! It’s a great occasion for another festive family feast with delicious food and drinks. Instead of a Christmas tree, it is customary here to decorate a badnjak — a young oak tree. On New Year’s Eve, as a rule, everyone first gathers around the festive table, and after midnight they go out to stroll and congratulate their neighbors and random passersby. Just like us! Only there is no presidential New Year’s address, because in Montenegro it is not customary at all to watch TV on New Year’s Day. Instead of the familiar Father Frost, children are visited by Deda Mraz. And he comes alone, without his Snow Maiden. Also, in Montenegro they believe that poultry dishes on the New Year’s table are a bad omen — happiness will “fly away” from the house. Moreover, January 2 is the time of “Chicken Christmas.” Domestic chickens are fed only the very best, toasts are raised to their health, and they are by no means eaten. On the first night of the year, fortune-telling is customary in Montenegro. And not only young girls tell fortunes about suitors, but everyone does. Everyone is interested in who the new year will bring success to, and who new love. One of the popular divinations is with a pumpkin. The first guest who comes to the house must smash a pumpkin on the doorstep. If it has many seeds and they scatter all over the house, it means the whole next year the family will live in prosperity. Public celebrations on New Year’s Eve take place in all major cities. In Budva — by the walls of the Old Town, and in Podgorica — on Republic Square. After midnight, everyone who had dinner at home comes out to the central city squares, and some have been celebrating here since the evening. Around 00:30, theatrical performances begin, fireworks roar, and everyone congratulates each other on the holiday.
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