Are you wearing your red underwear?

The market in Ortigia, Sicily, December, 2016, where you can buy your red underwear

For New Year's in Sicily there are a few things that you absolutely must do.  First, stock up on fireworks.  The small towns and villages don't have city-sanctioned fireworks displays like in the U.S.  Instead, everyone gets their own cache and lights them off in the streets.

 Second, you must wear red underwear on New Year's Eve.  This ensures you have have a red-hot love life in the new year.  For the week or so leading up to new year's, the markets all have stalls with every size and shape of red undies.

And finally, on New Year's Eve, your meal must have lentils.  This is to make sure that the coming year is a prosperous one financially.  Sometime in the past, someone decided that lentils look like coins, and so a tradition was born.

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