In Spain, revelers mark the new year by quickly eating a dozen grapes at midnight. The fruit is said to be a predictor of the year ahead: Each sweet grape represents a good month, each sour grape a less-than-lucky one.
Adopt the tradition by threading grapes onto skewers, and serve each in a glass of Champagne just before the countdown.
Guests will go dotty for confetti decorated with their own smiling faces. Use a photo-editing program to give digital pictures of family and friends a sepia tint; print onto matte photo paper. Use 1/2-inch to 1-inch circle punches to cut out faces, as well as extra circles from colored paper and vellum. Package the confetti in envelopes, and hand them out to guests for a celebratory toss at midnight.
A bit of frill adds instant holiday flair. To make a sparkling underskirt, find a slip slightly longer than your dress. Use fabric glue, such as Magna-Tac, to attach overlapping rows of 30-mm gold paillettes to the hem.
For the look: Madison dress, in Aqua Marine, 57grand.com.
A New Year's Eve celebration wouldn't be complete without a glass of Champagne, so bubbly is a perfect theme for end-of-the-year festivities. Ball-shaped ornaments displayed in glass flutes mimic the rising bubbles. (We mixed vintage balls with clear ones.) Gather flutes in varying styles, and cluster them on a cake stand to craft a truly effervescent centerpiece.
Giving red envelopes filled with coins is a custom at Chinese New Year (which starts January 26), designed to bring good fortune to the recipients. Here's how to share the luck with dinner guests.
1. Rubber-stamp a red envelope with a New Year's greeting -- in any language -- using a gold-ink pad.
2. Fill it with change, and then lay it on a folded napkin wrapped with a band of patterned paper.
3. Tie in back with gold cord.
Serve a meal in miniature: a sunny-side-up quail egg atop a piece of cocktail bread.
(Quail eggs are available at specialty-food stores, including some Whole Foods markets, and through LocalHarvest.)
