Old plates are traditionally smashed outside Danish homes on New Year’s Eve to bring luck.
The Danish custom involves breaking unwanted plates and dishes against the doors of friends or neighbors. A large pile of fragments outside a home is traditionally interpreted as evidence that the household has many loyal friends who came to celebrate and wish it well.
The practice is a form of symbolic New Year renewal: damaged or unneeded crockery is discarded as the old year ends, while the noise and gathering express goodwill. Modern celebrations may use fewer real plates than older accounts suggest, and safety concerns make the custom less universal than its popular image.
This tradition should not be confused with Denmark’s separate New Year food and cake customs. Nor is the object normally described as a special ceremonial plate; the defining feature is that old or unwanted tableware is broken at the threshold.