New Year preparations start days in advance. Houses are scrubbed and tidied. The kitchen fills up with food - dolma, khorovats, gata, dried fruits, walnuts, jars of jam. The big New Year's Eve table is set out with so many small dishes that no surface is left empty. There must be something tasty wherever your eye lands.
At midnight on 31 December, fireworks go up over Yerevan and other Armenian cities. Families clink glasses of homemade fruit drinks, wish each other 'Shnorhavor Nor Tari!' (Happy New Year!), and start the year by eating together until late.
Then the visiting begins. For the next week, Armenian families travel from house to house - to grandparents, to aunts and uncles, to friends. At every house, hosts have laid out their own table of food. Visitors must try at least one thing from every table. By the end of the week, no one is hungry for a while.
Children get small gifts and pocket money from relatives. Special Armenian New Year dried fruits and nuts - apricots, walnuts, dates, figs - are put out in bowls on every table. The point of the whole week is simple: start the year by being with the people you love.