Now that we are grown up, the New Year is usually about fresh starts, new chapters, and plans for what is next. But it is worth going back to how it felt when we were kids — because that is where the magic was.

I remember one New Year when the whole family was together. Someone was playing the piano, and under the Christmas tree I found a gift for me: a colouring book with a white marker. I had only ever seen books like that in TV commercials. It felt unreal. I picked up the marker and started colouring, and wherever it touched the page, colour suddenly appeared.

That memory is so vivid that it made me think everyone must have moments like this tucked away somewhere. So I decided to ask friends of The Sandy Times about their own New Year memories — the ones that stayed with them.

Co-creator of THE KARAK and one of the FLAVA LAB duo

Every year, we would go to a small town in Bulgaria with a huge group of friends — my parents’ friends, my uncle’s friends — around 50 or 60 people in total. We would stay in the hotel with mineral water, so the days leading up to New Year’s Eve felt like a little spa holiday.

On New Year’s Eve, everyone would gather in a big ballroom. There was Bulgarian traditional dancing — all kinds of dances — and it went on until five in the morning.

But the part we were most excited about, as kids, happened at midnight. Earlier that day, we would go outside and cut a thin branch from a tree. We would shape it, twist it, and decorate it using only natural materials: thread, popcorn, dried peppers, and sometimes little metal coins. Lots of threads, lots of dried peppers — colourful and beautiful.

After midnight, each child would take their decorated stick (Survaknitsa) and go from adult to adult, saying a traditional blessing — a short saying wishing them health, wealth, and good fortune for the year ahead. In return, the adults would give us something: money, chocolate, candy — whatever they had.

That is the part I remember most clearly. It was fun, and it felt special — almost like an art project that led up to New Year’s Eve.

Сo-founder of Vinyl Souk

New Year’s Eve was always at home, with my immediate family — my parents, my sister, and sometimes a close relative dropping by. We didn’t step out or go to parties. The evening revolved around food and togetherness. Either my mother would cook something special, or we would order in — dishes that felt indulgent back then: biryani, pav bhaji, or a rich curry with freshly made rotis. The kitchen smelled warm and busy all evening.

The television was always on, tuned into Doordarshan. We would watch the New Year’s countdown, variety programmes, music performances, and whatever festive broadcast was on that night. The excitement wasn’t about the spectacle, but about staying up late, watching the clock inch closer to midnight.

Looking back, it feels slow, intimate, and grounding — and in many ways, it shaped how I still like to welcome the new year today.

Singer-songwriter

On New Year’s Eve, the whole family gathers in the living room to watch predictions for the year ahead. The most famous one is Michel Hayek, though over the years, there have been other “fortune tellers” as well, each with their own visions of what’s coming: war or no war, the economy, political shifts, and so on. So many omens.

The program always starts by showing how many of last year’s predictions came true, replaying moments that unfolded exactly as they were foretold. It is a very Lebanese thing — living with constant unpredictability, and turmoil makes the biggest New Year’s question not what do we hope for? But what will happen next?

Artist

I grew up in La Ceiba, Honduras, where December never felt like winter. The air was heavy, humid, and warm; so much happened outside.

In the days leading up to New Year’s, the coheterías would appear everywhere. I was obsessed with them. I would buy small fireworks and take them apart, mixing pieces, inventing my own contraptions; half curiosity, half mischief. By midnight, the entire street would disappear into smoke. It felt like the whole neighbourhood was erupting together, loud and alive, between chaos and celebration.

We ate tamales, always tamales. They were the food of the season. I don’t remember them as a single dish but as a presence: unwrapped and familiar. The house stayed open, and people moved in and out. Family was there, but also neighbours, cousins, and friends.

There was no cold, no silence, no countdown on a screen. Just noise, heat, fireworks, and food. I remember standing outside at midnight, surrounded by smoke, feeling small and electrified, as if the year didn’t change; it exploded into existence.

Creative

We spent a lot of our New Year’s celebrations in a kind of Soviet style. We would make manti, zimni salat, markovcha, and baursak. We decorated the house nicely, lit candles, and watched the fireworks from home.

I think I was about eight or nine when I really understood the idea of the New Year. My older sister explained it to me, and I remember thinking, Wow — so this means I get a whole new year to try things again.

I feel like I understood the concept of New Year a bit later than everyone else, honestly — but once it clicked, it really stayed with me.

Multidisciplinary designer and calligrapher

When I think about how I celebrate the New Year today, I always go back to how it began.

During my university years, I lived in Nablus. Nablus felt different from many cities in Palestine — more open, more international in its own way. It carried multiple layers of history and community living together: Muslims, Christians, and the Samaritan (Somara) community, each adding to the city’s character and rhythm.

At the end of the year, especially around Christmas, the city transformed. Lights filled the streets, trees appeared in shop windows, Santa figures stood proudly, and there was a shared energy that made celebration feel natural — almost necessary. You could see it everywhere. It made you want to celebrate simply because the city itself was celebrating.

But when the university closed for the holidays, I would return home to Jenin, where my family lived. And suddenly, everything shifted.

Jenin had a completely different understanding of celebration. In my father’s world, these occasions were never a priority. Celebrating for the sake of celebrating was often seen as unnecessary, even a waste of time. Yet, without realising it, we were celebrating in our own quiet way.

Every year, on New Year’s Eve, we gathered together — me, my uncles, relatives — sitting in the living room with the TV on. Lebanese channels filled the room with countdowns, shows, and news. We watched with curiosity, wondering about life there, about that lifestyle, where it came from, and why it existed in that form. As Arabs, we often assumed that this way of celebrating belonged somewhere else.

Looking back now, I realise that this was our celebration.

What we didn’t know at the time was that those moments — sitting together, watching, questioning, simply being present — were perhaps the last chance for us to be together as a family before everything changed. Before I moved, before travel, before distance became real. This was all before the war. We didn’t name it celebration, but it was togetherness in its purest form.

For my father, public holidays meant something else entirely. They were an opportunity to finish a sign, complete an artwork, or prepare a piece before everyone went back to work. And for us, the celebration wasn’t fireworks or countdowns — it was helping him hang the artwork, stepping back to see it dry, and sharing that quiet satisfaction before life resumed.

Today, I’m building a new meaning of celebration with my own family — my wife and my daughter. With her growing up and joining school, our calendar expanded. We now celebrate Halloween, Christmas, Diwali, Eid al-Fitr, New Year’s Eve, and Nowruz (Nairuz) — a celebration rooted in Persian culture and the arrival of spring. Each occasion carries a different story, a different rhythm, but the same core: being together.

Between Nablus and Jenin, between lights and silence, between city energy and village calm, between finishing an artwork and sitting together watching the news — that is where my understanding of celebration was shaped.