Panevin. January, Saturday 5th

i'm so happy to finally have a moment to sit down and talk about this, one of my very favorite traditions.
on the night between january 5th and 6th in almost every small village in veneto and friuli there are large bonfires, where people gather around, drinking hot wine and singing traditional song.
where i live, in treviso province, we call it panevin, but i heard people use different names, in other places around.
panevin is a dialectal word which means bread and wine, probably because of the simple food people used to bring and eat during this gatherings in the past.

tradition says panevin's fire burns all the worries and the bad things of the past years, and give people the chance to see how the new year will be, by looking at the smoke directions:
fuische a sera poenta pien caliera
fuische a matina, ciol su'l sac e va a farina
if the sparks are going west it will be a good year, with rich harvest {actually, the proverb doen't mention harvest but polenta, the main dish of poor countryside people of north italy in the past, made by cornmeal} but if they're going east, it's better you do your best at work, cause it's not going to be easy.

the night was great, not too cold. we sang, drank, ate and felt happy.
i'm wondering if something similar exists in other parts of the world. any special old tradition to welcome the new year? please, tell me your stories.

{the last two photos were taken with olympus om10 + fuji superia 1600. our afternoon before the bonfires were burned here}