The 31st of December has been the last day of the year only since the 17th century. In some villages it was believed that animals speak in human voices on this day. It was forbidden to hang out clothes, because if they did so someone from the family would hang himself.

Instead of having bacchanals, people went to church to bury the old year. In Transylvania a straw-puppet was buried, symbolizing the death and burial of the year passed.

Along the river Galga a so-called Onion-calendar was made. Twelve skins of onion were strewn with salt, and placed on the shoulder of the beehive oven. Each onion skin symbolized a month of the year. The onion skin on which the salt melted by the next morning predicted a month with much rain.

Source: Puszta.com