New Year is a symbol of a fresh start. There is a New Year’s saying Kako dočekate ponoć, takva će vam biti cijela godina. This means that your whole next year is going to be exactly like your night on New Year’s Eve.

If you’re with many friends on the eve of the new year, your next year will include a lot of time with friends. If you’re having a bunch of great food and drink, you’ll enjoy a lot of great food and drink in the new year. If you’re having sex on New Year’s… I’ll stop here because you know where this is going.

Many New Year’s Eve customs around the world include a common thread of chasing away evil spirits and invoking love, happiness, and health. Some old Croatian rituals still remain today, and some are long gone. The best recipe for a successful New Year is to combine something old and something new.

In this post, we cover:

• What is Silvestrovo
• Croatian New Year’s Eve
• Croatian New Year’s customs
• New Year foods and drinks
• Christmas wheat

The facts are these…

How are Silvestrovo and New Year’s Eve celebrated in Croatia

What is Silvestrovo – Saint Sylvester’s Day?

On December 31, Croatians celebrate Silvestrovo (Saint Sylvester’s Day). Sveti Silvestar (Saint Sylvester) was Roman Pope Sylvester I who lived in the 4th century. The legend says that he cured the emperor Constantine of leprosy.

After this, the church declared him the patron saint of lepers. During his period, Christianity became a free religion, and Sylvester helped to spread it around.

Silvestrovo is the day when Croatians prepare a lot of food, clean, and dress up to welcome the new year of prosperity.

How is New Year celebrated in Croatia?

A traditional Croatian New Year’s Eve isn’t much different than the NYE celebrations in other parts of the world. Our customs include family gatherings and celebrations, dressing up in fancy clothes, decorations, a countdown to midnight, fireworks, champagne, and a toast.

Almost every city has some kind of celebration. Bigger cities prepare outdoor celebrations in the main city squares. This usually includes concerts by popular singers or music groups as a part of Advent. People also like to celebrate at private parties, hotels, and restaurants.

[Read: Guide on Advent celebrations across Croatia]

Old Croatian New Year’s customs

There are some old customs more focused on the New Year than New Year’s Eve.

Goodhearted customs of Croatian New Year

• People would say that your health condition would depend on who you first saw on New Year’s Day.
• Everyone would wash their face in clean water with an apple in it. Some money would be put into the apple, and that would bring good health and money throughout the whole next year.
• Children would go out first thing in the morning to congratulate everyone on the New Year.
• There was a belief that everyone who travels on New Year’s Day would travel throughout the whole year.

Ridiculous and kind of misogynistic customs of Croatian New Year

• There was an old belief that if a man visits your house first, it brings happiness. On the other hand, if a woman comes, this brings bad luck. It’s a pretty sexist custom, to say the least.
• Also, people used to bake feathers into cakes. It was believed that the owner of the first feather to burn would be the first to die. BONKERS.
• If someone borrows money on the New Year, then they will borrow the money during the whole next year.
• There was a belief that women should wear red underwear on New Year’s Eve to achieve happiness in love.

New Croatian New Year’s customs

People like to believe that this first day in the year will mark and define their next 365 days. This is why it is very important to welcome New Year’s Eve in a clean and decorated house.

Split has an interesting (and a little crazy) tradition. No matter how cold it is, people play games of picigin in the shallow waters of Bačvice beach. Picigin is like a hacky sack played with your hands and a tennis ball.

These crazy souls claim that bathing in a cold sea is very healthy for your body. We will take their word for it.

Croatian New Year foods and drinks

According to some old customs, it is not recommended to eat poultry or rabbit. People say that chickens like to “rummage”, and rabbits run and carry away happiness. Fish also isn’t recommended because “prosperity will swim away from the house with the fish”.

People would prepare lentils. Since they are small and you can eat many of them, it is thought that this brings money to the house.

Odojak (piglet) or svinjetina (pork) should be served on the New Year’s Eve table. Pigs dig from the front, which suggests that they bring happiness to the house. Sarma (cabbage rolls), pečene kobasice (baked sausages), kulen (traditional Croatian dried sausage), and pršut (traditional Croatian ham) will always make an inevitable appearance.

In modern times, francuska salata (French salad) was added to the table as it is a good side dish for almost every main course.

The New Year’s Eve table wouldn’t be complete without good local wine.

[Read: 9 insider tips for buying wine in Croatia]

Some Croatians can’t imagine New Year’s without a nice chocolate cake. Some prefer donuts or salt cake with yeast. Having cake suggests the next year will be “high as the cake”.

Nowadays, anything you put on the table won’t be a waste. People no longer respect food customs to that extent, but some things have become routine. You can be sure that most Croatians will still prepare sarma, but the youth is more liberal. They just like to go out, and party like the world is about to end.

Why do Croatians sow Christmas wheat for Christmas?

Croats have a tradition of sowing wheat called božićna pšenica (Christmas wheat) on Sveta Barbara (December 4) or Sveta Lucija (December 13). This custom symbolizes your prosperity in the new year. If the wheat grows beautifully and is healthy and tall, the next year will be rich. If your wheat is yellowish and short, the year won’t be so good.

Most people say that it is better to sow it on Sveta Lucija. They claim that 12 days until Christmas is enough for wheat to grow and see the result.

[Read: St. Lucy’s Day (Sveta Lucija) in Croatia]

Historically, people sow wheat on a small amount of soil in a small saucer. The modern custom is to put it on cotton instead of soil. In the middle of the wheat, people would put a small glass with three candles. The first candle is lit on Christmas Eve, the second on Christmas, and the third on New Year’s Eve. These candles symbolize the Holy Trinity.

Today people put just one candle with the pattern of trobojnica (Croatian flag color pattern) as a symbol of Croatian identity. If you don’t have a candle, you can put a tricolor ribbon around it. Wheat is usually thrown out on Epiphany, but it can serve as a nice decoration as long as it lasts.

[Read: Epiphany (Bogojavljenje, Sveta tri kralja)]

Learn more about the Croatian tradition of Christmas wheat and how to grow it here.

A full list of Croatian holidays is available here.

View our other holiday posts

• All Saint’s Day (Dan svih svetih) in Croatia
• Anti-Fascist Struggle Day (Dan antifašističke borbe)
• Corpus Christi (Tijelovo)
• Day of Remembering the Victims of Croatia War of Independence and Day of Remembering Victims of Vukovar and Škabrnja
• Epiphany (Bogojavljenje, Sveta tri kralja)
• How Croatia celebrates Easter‌
• Međunarodni praznik rada (Labor Day)
• Nikolinje – Saint Nicholas’ Day
• St. Lucy’s Day (Sveta Lucija)
• St. Martin’s Day (Martinje)
• Statehood Day (Dan državnosti)
• Sveti Stjepan, Štefanje (St. Stephen’s Day)
• Velika Gospa (Assumption of Mary)
• Victory and Homeland Thanksgiving Day (Dan pobjede i domovinske zahvalnosti)