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Whether you’re ringing in the new year with a midnight kiss, singing “Auld Lang Syne,” watching fireworks or writing a laundry list of resolutions, when the clock strikes midnight, it’s a

moment of transition from old to new. And when you have transition markers like New Year’s Eve, says Jack Santino, 76, a retired professor of popular culture at Bowling Green State

University in Ohio, it is often accompanied with ritual, belief and superstition. “[People] feel that you can do something during the period of transition that will have an effect on the

future, on what’s coming,” says Santino, who has also written several books on holidays and ritual and was the former president of the American Folklore Society. Whether you’re planning to

call it an early night or you have a ritual of your own that you wholeheartedly believe or just partake of in jest, these rituals are all about making sure to “mark the occasion, and

symbolically open ourselves to new and hopefully more positive experiences,” says Debra Lattanzi Shutika, 59, a folklorist and associate professor at George Mason University. Rituals can be

especially comforting when you’re looking for a way to move on from the past, says Shutika. “We’ve had some pretty tough years … and so the idea is that you want to mark the boundary and

say, ‘That horrible year is behind us,’ — or even that mediocre year — and we’re hoping for better things in the year to come.”  AARP spoke to Santino, Shutika and other folklorists and

anthropologists to uncover some unique New Year’s rituals and the reasons behind them. EATING 12 GRAPES BEFORE MIDNIGHT At the top of Santino’s mind when discussing New Year’s Eve rituals is

one he took part in while visiting Spain: feeding 12 grapes to a partner. “You would actually place the grape in a partner’s mouth, and we did the 12 [grapes] for the 12 tolling bells,” he

says, adding that the longstanding tradition had been commercialized to the point that supermarkets now sell cans of 12 individual grapes in Spain. This Spanish tradition, practiced in

various forms throughout Latin America, supposedly ensures you a year of good luck … if you’re quick enough. Folklore says it may bring you bad luck if you don’t finish on time. Circular or

semicircular foods and items represent coins and money, and in this instance the number of grapes symbolizes “one good wish, one good thing consumed for each month,” says Jeanmarie

Rouhier-Willoughby, 62, professor of Russian studies, folklore and linguistics at the University of Kentucky.