In the past, the passing of the old year and the beginning of the New Year in Armenia was announced by ten to twelve year old boys. They would gather in groups and go from house to house the day and night before the New Year, hooking "hangings" on the roofs. They wished people a Happy New Year, praised the daughters and brides of the house, and listed the gifts they awaited. The housewives would put pastries, fruit, dried fruit and other sweets in the patterned socks hooked on the roof. It was customary to hook bundles of dried fruit on the roofs of the houses of friends and relatives, especially godparents, and to leave unnoticed. In those days, girls who were engaged would send their fiancés silk apples embroidered with multi-colored threads, and they would receive from the boys' families apples decorated with silver ten-kopeck coins and other presents - shawls, socks, etc.

Women would throw red cloths over trees considered sacred and wind red threads around them as a token of joy for the approaching year and "red" (merry) days. They decorated the main column of the house with red ribbon, ornamenting the ceiling with dough figures in the shape of tools. This was to bring abundance and success in work in the coming year. The Armenians of Hamshen decorated olive branches on New Year's Eve. All family members had their own branches blessed in church; they attached the branches to the column or put them into dough. In Zangezur people cleaned the cowsheds, strew barley on the floor, and wound red threads around the horns of an animal in order that the year be fertile and full of "red days".

On New Year's Eve Armenians always tried to leave behind the ruptures and troubles of the past year, there was a belief that as the New Year begins, so will it continue.

On December 30th and 31st, they would busily prepare for New Year's Day in all Armenian homes. Our ancestors were convinced that an abundant and opulent table was necessary for the New Year to be prosperous and successful.

The New Year's table was laden with dried fruits, fresh pears and apples, pomegranates, grapes and quince, which symbolized fertility and fruitfulness. Raisins, nuts, almonds, aghandz (roasted hempseed and barley) and holiday sweets called Kaghand were always present on the table.

Housewives, daughters and daughters-in-law cleaned the beans, peas, lentils, rice and grains from which various dishes were made to adorn the table. Everywhere they made Anushapur (sweet soup) from ground wheat, raisins, dried apricot, and doshab (fruit syrup), and Harissa (barley stew), in order that in the New Year fields and gardens be abundant and fertile. In Zangezur and Siunik they made dolma with meat; in Ayrarat and Shirak Lenten dolma, and kufta made of lentils and peas was common.

In every home they baked bread, gata and other cakes and pastries. The eight to ten year old girls sprinkled the yeast in the new New Year's bread. Women baked the most important food of the holiday, the Year bread, and they put a sign in it -a ring, button, coin, or bead. At the New Year's eve dinner the Year bread was served to the family-members, to married daughters and absent sons, very often even to the animals and to the fields... The one who got the sign was to be the lucky-one of the year and bring success to the family. It was a bad omen if it fell under the knife.

They also baked wheat and barley figures in the shape of humans, animals, tools, etc.

If they puffed up while they were baking, then the year would be successful; if not, unlucky. Our ancestors were convinced that the cookies would contribute to prosperity, and abundant cow's milk and wheat.

It was customary to tell fortunes on New Year's Eve. Young girls on the edge of womanhood left an egg on the edge of the tonir (pit oven), placed in between coal and henna. If in the morning it had turned red from the henna than the girl would be lucky, but if the egg turned black, the year would be black, unsuccessful for the girl. Or they swept the walls of the tonir with a broom and put branches from the broom under their pillow. if they broke, so would their luck, and the lucky ones would be those whose branches stayed intact.

Our ancestors believed also in telling fortunes connected to the first visitor; they impatiently waited for a neighbor "with a light hand and a foot" to be the first to knock on the door. In order to secure prosperity and peace in the house, the eldest member of the household put bread, wine, honey and four apples on a tray, upon which four beeswax candles were burning. He took the tray to the four corners of the house, went outside, prayed to God for a sweet year and invited all the family for bread and honey. In the end, he made the sign of the cross in honey on the door of the house, and then blackened it with soot from the burned beeswax candle. And the men of the house made a cross in honey above the door of the barn and put a pastry with a hole in the middle on the right horn of the bullocks and spread a little honey around their mouths.

The New Year's festivities began with a holiday dinner. The whole family sat at the table in new and fancy clothes, and the eldest in the family blessed the table and proposed the first toast to the New Year, and offered honey to eat with the first drink so that in the coming year everything would be "sweet and honeyed". The children congratulated their parents; the taciturn daughters-in-law their parents-in-law. Everybody approached the father of the clan in order of age, and the first one to congratulate him received a gift. Only after this ritual did they help themselves to the food. The rich always set aside some portion of their bountiful table for their poor relatives and neighbors. After dinner they went calling. In Kessab, they congratulated each other on New Year's Eve, in other places in early morning. On those days no door was closed. They visited the elders of clan, parents, godparents, in-laws, and those who had lost loved-ones in the past year. They never went to congratulate one another empty handed; they would add at least one apple to the table and fill the house with their good wishes, blessings and congratulations.