Good Luck Traditions for NYE
-Have some cash in your wallet. Starting the year with your debts paid and money in your pocket is said to ward off financial hardship.
-Fill your cupboards. Empty cupboards signify a hard, hungry year ahead, so make that last-minute grocery run if you can. At the very least, try to make sure you have bread and salt in the house.
-Save your cleaning for January. Cleaning the house on New Year’s Eve is said to sweep or wash away good luck coming your way in the new year. Of course, some traditions hold that the exact opposite is true - that cleaning your home just before the new year symbolizes a fresh start. (I say compromise and do your tidying on Dec 30th.)
-Open the doors and windows. Doing so just after midnight symbolizes letting the old year out and welcoming the new one in.
-Make some noise! Cheer, clap, sing, blow horns, set off fireworks or party crackers, bang pots and pans together. All of these traditions are meant to scare away spirits waiting to cause bad luck in the new year.
-Kiss your sweetie. A kiss at midnight on New Year’s Eve is meant to preserve the love you feel for the entirety of the year to come.
-Toast the old year as it ends and the new year as it begins. Traditionally, this is done with champagne or beer or some kind of alcohol, but it's perfectly acceptable to do so with juice or soda or mocktails instead. (Some traditions hold that toasting with water is bad luck.)
-Divine your future for the year ahead with candle wax. Melt a spoonful of wax over a flame or burn a fresh votive until a small pool forms. Extinguish the candle and pour the liquid wax into a bowl of cold water, then examine the shape it takes. (In Germany, they do this with small pieces of lead or tin.)
-Serve your favorite traditional foods with your New Year’s supper to ensure that poverty and hardship stay far from your door in the coming year. Good-luck foods include lentils, grapes (twelve of them), black-eyed peas and collard greens, pork and sauerkraut, and soba noodles. In Greece and Bulgaria, special breads and pastries are made with a single lucky coin baked inside. German and Swedish traditions also recommend eating pickled herring for New Year’s.
-Burn the old year in effigy! Write the number of the year and anything you wish to get rid of or leave behind on a piece of paper. Prepare a bonfire or cauldron, crumple the paper, and toss it into the flames. (This is best done outdoors if possible. Always practice fire safety!)
Happy New Year to all and may next December find us all better off than we were!
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