Just as she did when she was a young girl growing up in Mexico, Martha Sanchez will greet the new year chewing on grapes.

The 'Aina Haina mother and her two children will probably be at a late movie, keeping an eye on the time. In the final minute of 2008, each of them will quickly eat 12 grapes with the hope that the fruit will bring good luck in the months ahead.

"We sneak 12 grapes with us wherever we are," said Sanchez, the 55-year-old owner of Mercado De La Raza, a market on Beretania Street. "You want to make sure they are ones you can chew. You don't want to choke on them. You make sure they are not big."

For the Sanchez family, it's a well-loved tradition, something done every year to help to remind them of their culture. Eating grapes and making a wish with each one originated in Spain and spread among Hispanic communities around the world.

But there's a deeper reason for the practice, and it's a truth that will resonate in households across Hawai'i, regardless of ethnic origins: No matter how simple a tradition, it draws families closer to each other.

It isn't even necessary to know the origins. But it's important to have a sense of humor.

"We try to make sure we wear new clothes to start the new year," Sanchez said, laughing. "If you don't have a whole outfit, make sure you wear new underwear."

STARTING FRESH

Nancy Ortiz eats grapes, too — at home with her husband as the chimes go off — but they're just part of a long list of traditions her family considers important.

A third-generation Puerto Rican, Ortiz, 66, hosts a New Year's day party for her family at her Kane'ohe home — children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Starting fresh is important, Ortiz said, and Puerto Ricans clean everything ahead of time: The house, the yard, their cars, even the curb.

"New Year's to them is sacred, and you want to start the year with everything new, everything bright," said Ortiz, host of a Hispanic radio program. "It is believed that whatever the condition in which the new year finds our property, that is how our property will stay for the rest of the year."

Before they can eat a traditional meal of pasteles, Spanish rice and pernil, or roast pork, family members sit down to sort through any disagreements that marked the previous year.

"This is the time we say what needs to be said, if we have any ill feelings amongst each other, and ask for forgiveness," Ortiz said. "By the time everyone leaves, they are hugging and kissing and it starts all over again."

FIREWORKS WITH A TWIST

In Hawai'i, fireworks are synonymous with New Year's celebrations, but ever since Nash Witten was a boy, his family added its own special twist. The Wittens make small, cardboard boats loaded with fireworks, light them on fire and float them into the ocean.

The boat that burns the longest is judged the winner.

"They burn down pretty fast," said Witten, a 19-year-old University of Hawai'i freshman from Hale'iwa. "It's kind of dorky. But everyone gets excited about it beforehand. They joke that theirs will last the longest. And there's always a secret boat that someone builds away from everyone and shows up with it."

There are no rules, or prizes. Just bragging rights at the annual family get-together, which is usually at an uncle's house at Kawela Bay.

"The whole idea is to get it as bright as possible, just a flaming mass of cardboard," Witten said. "They eventually burn themselves into the water and sink."

GATHERING IN KITCHEN

At Niranjala Cooray's home in Kaimuki, the Sri Lankan native and her family, along with a large group of friends, always start the year by making a mess on her gas stove.

The celebration includes Sri Lankan songs, eating rice simmered in coconut milk — a dish called kiributh — and playing games.

Just before midnight, Cooray, 50, lights an oil lamp made of brass. Then everyone gathers in her kitchen to watch as she heats milk in a clay pot until it boils over.

"It's symbolic of abundance and prosperity for everybody," said Cooray, an environmental health and safety consultant. "Your pot boils over."

Cooray hopes her three daughters will take up the practice, and 17-year-old Ayesha, her second child, said she wouldn't want to lose the tradition.

"I think that traditions like boiling over the milk and lighting the lamp are important for fellowship," Ayesha said. "We get together and partake of the traditions. It sounds goofy and stuff but when you are there and doing it, it seems more meaningful."

And what happens to the milk? The dog gets that.

BLESSINGS AT SHRINE

Krislyn Hashimoto can't remember when she got her first New Year's Eve blessing and fortune at the Daijingu Temple of Hawaii, but it has become so important to her that she can't imagine marking the holiday any other way.

The ceremony, which starts a few hours before midnight, attracts hundreds of people to the Shinto shrine in Nu'uanu, including Hashimoto, 27, her younger brother, her parents and sometimes other relatives. Often, they're coming from the annual party at her uncle's house nearby.

The shrine offers a festive, hopeful mood. Like everyone else, the Hashimotos wash their hands and wait in a long line where they can buy good-luck trinkets. Hashimoto, a senior account executive at the public relations firm Stryker Weiner & Yokota, usually invests her pocket change in a talisman for her car.

"They usually give you a small, little sip of sake," Hashimoto said. "Then you go and get blessed by the priest for good luck and a good future. They have a big bell you ring. You are supposed to ring it loud. I am not sure if it's the gods who hear you or the neighbors."

Part of the fun is the fortune-telling machine.

"You stick a coin into a machine and it gives you your fortune for the new year," Hashimoto said. "If your fortune is good, we usually keep it, but if it is not so good, you tie it to a tree at the temple. I guess that offsets your bad fortune."

Her family's traditional activities extend to the first day of the year when some of them visit the graves of grandparents — and a few family friends — to wash the headstones, tidy the area and leave fresh-cut flowers.

The why behind all this isn't as important to Hashimoto as the fact that her family considers its take on tradition to be a vital part of life.

"The main thing is, we do it as a family," she said. "It is a cultural tradition and it is about the family. I think it's important. If and when I have kids, I would probably continue doing the same thing."