Last post of 2023

Author

Claudio Constantini
December 31, 2023

By now, I´ve spent most of my New Year celebrations in Europe instead of in my home country (Perú).

I´ve experienced different ways of celebrating Christmas and New Year depending on the country I was living in.

When I was younger back in my home country, it was always during summertime and it was very hot.

But people still put up their Christmas tree and even decorated it with fake snow.

At 12, both at Christmas and New Year, there was always a huge amount of clandestine fireworks and explosives burnt. The noise around the city was deafening. The smell of gunpowder was still in the air the next morning.

In Finland, on the contrary, Christmas peace was officially declared some days before the 25th of December. If you did anything wrong like committing any sort of crime, your punishment during those couple of weeks would double (so double the jail time).

The amount of snow and darkness contributed to the amount of peace. It was silent and cold, but extremely beautiful and warm inside people´s homes.

And here in Spain where I´ve been living for the past 11 years, on New Year´s Eve, when the clock strikes 00:00, you have to gobble up 12 green grapes, one per every month of the year.

A task that I always found extremely difficult (and unpleasant) to do. But, it´s for good luck in the coming year.

Maybe I won´t do it this year… I don´t believe in miracles or easy luck.

I only believe in working hard on what you´re passionate about. It´s the only way of getting lucky that I know of.

I wish you a great 2024.

May you continue striving towards being the best version of yourself.

Claudio.