Many Danish people traditionally jump off a chair at midnight on New Year's Eve to symbolically jump into the new year.
The custom involves standing on a chair, sofa, or another raised surface and jumping down as the clock strikes twelve. It is treated as a playful good-luck ritual and a symbolic leap from the old year into the new one.
Danish New Year's Eve also includes fireworks, festive meals, and the televised New Year's address by the monarch. Another Danish custom involves smashing or leaving broken dishes at friends' and neighbors' doors, but that is a separate tradition.
The chair-jumping practice is sometimes incorrectly described as jumping over a table. The key action is jumping down from a raised position at midnight, rather than simply jumping in place.