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Show Holiday Fetes Basically Same Food, Visits Common Mark of New Year While New Year celebrations In all countries are basically similar, there are many interesting variations varia-tions and special features. For example, ex-ample, the King's honor list provides pro-vides great interest and excitement in England. In France and Germany, the holiday holi-day Is marked by festivities resembling re-sembling those in the United States, and the great cities, such as Paris, take on a carnival atmosphere on New Year's Eve. Poland, Lithuania, and Czechoslovakia Czech-oslovakia observe New Year with a round of calls by the people, and with official recep tions. In these countries, tables are piled high with food and drink and vast quantities of both are consumed on the eve of the new year as well as on New Year's Day. Gifts, too, are exchanged. A gold coin is baked in a cake by New Year's celebrants in Greece. On New Year's morning the cake is cut into as many slices as there are members of the family, fam-ily, and the one receiving the coin is considered to have much good luck in store for him. Huge bonfires are built by peasants of Bulgaria as a New Year's greeting to their friends In near-by villages. It is on this day also that Bulgarians announce an-nounce army promotions. Carol singing is an important feature of the Bulgarian celebrations. In Sweden, one form of observance observ-ance is that of high officials inscribing in-scribing their names in a huge book at the palace of the king. This appears, to be in lieu of an official reception. In this northern land it is the custom also to drive to church in sleighs early on New Year's morning. Torches are carried car-ried to light the way. |