The New Year's table in Georgia is lavishly covered with all sorts of dishes including: Satsivi (turkey with walnut sauce), roasted baby pig which symbolises wellbeing, different types of pkhali (vegetable pate with walnut), Georgian wine and champagne for the many, many toasts of the night, fruits, including dried persimmons, pomegranates, grapes, nuts and chestnuts. Churchkhela (walnuts in jellied grape juice) is an absolute must. The special sweet of the New Year is Gozinaki (a walnut‐honey confection) for life to be as sweet as honey, sweets, generally the more sweets on the table the sweeter the upcoming year will be.
At midnight as the fireworks flash in the background the champagne toasts begin and the feast begins. The first toast is always to the New Year, wishing everybody all the best for the coming year. The second toast is to the previous year, thanking it for everything good it brought.
For this world wide famous celebration Georgians have some wonderful customs and traditions. For example the main New Years attribute is the Christmas tree. In Georgia, in addition to the traditional Christmas tree each family decorates a chichilaki - a homemade wooden Christmas tree made out of walnut tree wood. Chichilaki are decorated with dried fruit and traditionally burned after the New Year, they believe that together with its smoke all troubles will be gone. To some countries fireworks at mid night is quite a new tradition, but to the Georgians it has an ancient origin. They believe that every shot hits the evil spirit, and in the New Year good will conquer evil. Still popular in the Georgian villages is "Mekvle". Mekvle is the man who first crosses the threshold of the house in the New Year. He can bring both happiness and unhappiness. Villagers already know who these people with " happy feet " are and invite them into the house in advance, those people present the hosts with a basket of wine, sweets and boiled pork, wishing them happiness in the coming New Year.
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