Covid Journal, Day 287: Getting Ready for New Year's Day

Rain, then sleet this morning, 38 and dropping. Snow flurries expected this morning, then more rain.

It's not a pretty day to end the year, but maybe the rain is really the tears all of us have shed this year as we lost so many to Covid-19. A somber thought on this gray morning, but let's look ahead now to the year in front of us. What will it be? How will it be? How will we be? 

To lighten the mood a little, here is the best from several posts I've written in the past about New Year's Day. So get ready to get ready--gather your parsley, black-eyed peas, cabbage, and ham, along with your beverage of choice to welcome in this new beginning. 

In 2008 I posted a blog about New Year's traditions, and in 2011 I recorded an interview for WV Public Radio on the topic. Here are some new ones I've found, along with the essay and my original post at the bottom for those of you who might have forgotten all the technicalities that supposedly ensure luck, health, happiness and wealth in the coming year.

Calendar: Take a calender for the new year, then close your eyes (or use a blindfold if it's a party) and turn the pages of the calendar at random and put your finger on a date. On that date, something good will happen to you. You will be able to look forward to this "lucky day" all year.

First-footer: always make sure it is a man who enters your home first on New Year's Day. Some traditions hold that it should be a light-haired man. (I'm in luck there, with Larry's white head!) Others insist on a light-haired man, so I guess it's all good either way.

Parsley: a leaf of parsley on the bottom shelf of your fridge on New Year's Day will make it certain that you will never be without money in the coming year. No wonder I've always been broke. Who knew?

And yet more. This could be a busy day, just getting ready for midnight.

Have you cleaned your house, put on new clothes, put money in your pocket and invited a dark-haired man to be the first to cross your threshold at midnight? If you have done all of these things, you have made a good start for the new year. 

As for food: many people in the mountains still cook and serve cabbage every New Year’s Day. I follow my English mother’s tradition of wrapping wrapped coins in foil, to be found in the servings on our plates at dinner. Although health experts would probably choke on their cabbage at such a practice, it has apparently done me little harm, although I can’t say I have ever gained the wealth that was supposed to come from dutifully following this custom. The cabbage must be served with pork, because chickens and turkeys scratch for their food, and cattle eat standing still. Since the hog eats while moving forward, obviiously pork is the best choice to ensure a year of progress.

Finding a dark-haired man, called the “first-footer,” to enter your home before anyone else on New Year’s morning is supposed to assure wealth, just as it did for my mother’s family back in England.  There are also those who believe that it’s bad luck to take the Christmas tree down until after New Year’s Day. So if you’re one of those who hurries to get the tree down quickly after Christmas Day, you might want to enjoy that tree just a little longer and see if your fortunes improve this year. In Scotland, homes are scoured for the coming of the new year, a custom that still has its followers in our mountains. I heard a Jackson County neighbor refer to this as “redding the house,” the same term used in Scotland to describe these preparations.

Fire has been used as a purifying force as far back as history can recall. In the British Isles there are fire festivals dating to the times of the ancient Celts that are still observed. So light a fire, burn your troubles in it, and bring in the coming year with a purifying ritual. 

More from past posts:

Do you have special plans for your New Year's celebration?

• Other things I do to ensure a good year:
• Listen up! The first words I hear after the year changes might carry portents for the rest of the year.
• Do things I enjoy on New Year's Day. This often includes touching base with my family and planning the garden with seed catalogs in hand.
• We used to have to work every New Year's Eve and New Year's day. Now it's important to me to be home because it seems to impact how the rest of my year will go. Superstitious? Yeah!
• Spend no money. An old superstition says that nothing should go out, not even dust or the trash. I don't know about that, but not spending on New Year's is another of those precedent-setting things for the coming year.
• There are conflicting world opinions about sweeping on New Year's. Some say you will sweep out your luck, others sweep out the old year's dust. So I sweep if it's needed!
• My mother always said that if you cried on New Year's, you'd cry all year. True? I don't know, but I try not to cry ;-)

As for food:

We always eat cabbage (with wrapped coins mixed in--I think this was a way to get kids to eat cabbage, one of the few vegetables available in winter in the old days, but probably not a favorite with kids then either! My sons were always on the hunt for rthe coins, but the deal was they had to eat all their cabbage to keep the coins. Quarters were the favorite, of course.), The cabbage can be coleslaw, of course, although somehow that seems like cheating.
Black-eyed peas are on the menu, too--my version mixes the peas with Ro-Tell Tomatoes and onions--spicy and good. And ham--yumm!

So share! What are your plans? What will you cook? What will you do or not do to celebrate and to guarantee your good luck?

For more ideas about food and celebration, try these websites:

New Year's Day traditions and superstitions

A list of 13 New Year's superstitions--an unlucky number for luck?

Food Network's gallery of recipes

How to make Hoppin' John to spice up those black-eyed peas (but I like my version best!)

And lastly:

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.