New Year is celebrated here with great enthusiasm! It’s a wonderful excuse for another festive family feast with delicious food and drinks.
Instead of a Christmas tree, people here traditionally decorate a badnjak — a young oak tree. On New Year’s Eve, everyone usually gathers first around the festive table, and after midnight they go out for a walk and congratulate their neighbors and random passersby. Just like at home! The only difference is that there is no presidential New Year’s address, because in Montenegro it is not customary to watch TV on New Year’s Eve at all.
Instead of the familiar Father Frost, children are visited by Deda Mraz. And he comes alone, without his Snow Maiden.
Montenegrins also believe that dishes made from poultry 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 hens are fed only the very best, toasts are raised to their health, and they are absolutely not eaten.
On the first night of the year, fortune-telling is customary in Montenegro. And not only young girls tell fortunes about their suitors — everyone does. Everyone is curious who the new year will bring success to, and who it will bring new love to. One popular form of fortune-telling is with a pumpkin. The first guest to enter the house must smash a pumpkin on the doorstep. If it has many seeds and they scatter all over the house, it means the family will live in prosperity throughout the coming year.
Public celebrations on New Year’s Eve take place in all major cities. In Budva, they are held by the walls of the Old Town, and in Podgorica — in Republic Square. After midnight, everyone who had dinner at home heads to the central city squares, while some have been celebrating there since early evening. Around 12:30 a.m., theatrical performances begin, fireworks thunder, and everyone congratulates one another on the holiday.