In Denmark's New Year's Eve tradition, people traditionally jump off chairs at midnight to bring good luck.
The custom is often described as “jumping into the new year.” As the clock reaches midnight, celebrants stand on chairs, sofas or other raised surfaces and jump down together. The gesture symbolically leaves the old year behind and enters the new one with optimism.
Danish New Year's Eve also includes other distinctive customs. People may watch the monarch's New Year's speech, eat a festive dinner and enjoy the traditional dessert kransekage, a tower of ring-shaped almond cakes. In some communities, broken plates historically represented friendship when thrown at the doors of friends and neighbors, although this practice is less common today.
The chair-jumping custom is not a requirement of a formal national ceremony, and household practices differ. Its meaning is cultural and symbolic rather than a claim that the physical jump itself guarantees prosperity.