New Year's Eve

Midnight fireworks over Skopje during a New Year's Eve celebrations in North Macedonia's capital on January 1, 2020. Photo: EPA-EFE/Georgi Licovski.

Fireworks shower the skies over the Macedonian capital, Skopje, at midnight during a New Year's Eve celebration on Janurary 1, 2020. Photo: EPA-EFE/Georgi Licovski.

Hundreds of people turned out in Istanbul to watch the spectacular and glittering fireworks at the Bosphorus strait for the New Year celebrations.

Large crowds thronged Sydney harbor on Dec. 31 to watch Australia's famous New Year's Eve fireworks, even as smoke from deadly wildfires turned skies in nearby coastal towns blood-red.

To prevent air pollution and increase safety, many Slovenian cities are canceling the traditional New Year's fireworks.

Local authorities have announced that there will be audio and video performances at midnight instead of fireworks. Other cities have announced they will replace fireworks with biodegradable candy.

The Blue Bird bar in downtown Athens invites you to dig deep into the back of your closet to find the most unsexy sweater you possess and wear it with pride as you celebrate the end of 2019 with a laugh. The bar will be holding a competition for the ugliest sweater during its New Year's Eve party, which gets off to an early start at 4 p.m. on Tuesday. Holiday-themed sweaters are encouraged.

As the world prepares to welcome 2020, Turkey has been preparing for New Year's Eve celebrations with many festivals and events across the country.

Turkish citizens along with foreign tourists have been attracting much attention to Istanbul's Taksim Square and İstiklal Avenue, decorated with illuminated sculptures.

Many Istanbulites spent their weekend shopping at malls, souvenir shops and dried nuts sellers in the Spice Bazaar to complete their preparations for New Year's celebrations.

Nearly 87% of Bulgarians will celebrate Christmas. Those who declare that they will not celebrate are mostly representatives of religious societies. For 35% of people, Christmas is a more important holiday than New Year's, but the largest share (43%) believe that the two holidays are equally important.

As people want to buy New Year's Eve national lottery tickets before they are sold out, long lines are being seen in front of the famous lottery booth in Istanbul's Eminönü district.

More than 18,000 LED lights have been lit, used as a Christmas tree decoration in California, believed to be the highest in the world, world agencies reported.

The thirty-five-foot white fir in front of Citadel Outlets in Commerce, California is also decorated with 10,000 ornaments.
With the LED lights on, the celebration of the Christmas holidays began.