New Year's Day Rules

I grew up with a list of New Year's Day superstitions, otherwise known as the Rules. My indoctrination began at a tender age, and New Year's Day just doesn't feel right if I don't follow all of the rules about the day. Most of these, if not all of them, come from my maternal grandmother, a woman raised in the South. So many of these superstitions are common in the South. In the North and West, however, they'll elicit some pretty strange looks from your friends.

Dinner
I spoke about this in a previous post. First, the main course. Eat nothing that scratches backwards. This means no poultry as they scratch backwards at the feed before eating it. Lamb is ok. As is ham or beef. But no poultry. I cannot eat chicken or turkey on New Year's Day without feeling like I'm committing some huge mortal sin.

Next, side dishes. You need to eat your black-eyed peas and greens. The black-eyed peas are for sense/cents. Not sure if it's for common sense or money, but I'll take either in abundance thank you very much. The greens are for dollars (or any money). This is any kind of green vegetable. Growing up it was green beans (probably because they were my sister's favorite veggie), but any greens will work. Just eat lots of it so you get lots of money. As a child I thought this was made up by my mother to get my sister and I to eat more vegetables than we would normally have to. We were good little girls, we always did eat our veggies, but "lots" was pushing it. However, the promise of lots of money during the coming year in exchange for suffering through a big pile of greens is convincing enough for any child. Note: I am still waiting for the big financial return on all those greens I've eaten over the years. Yet, I still eat a big pile of greens every damn year.

To ensure we ate a proper meal on New Year's Day, my grandmother would mail us a can of green beans, a can of black-eyed peas, and a ham (not the canned variety, but rather the preserved and shrink-wrapped kind). Yes, you read that right, mail us our meal. That's some pretty strong rule enforcement. I visited Grandmother for Christmas this year, and she sent me home with ham and a can of black-eyed peas. The only reason I didn't get a can of green beans as well is because I already have a can in my pantry (no lie, and she made me swear to it). She sent me home with them. Just in case I didn't have time to get to the store between Friday and Sunday night to get me some. And you wonder why I'm still following the rules to this day. I'm scared not to.

Laundry
Doing laundry on New Year's Day means that someone will be "washed" out of your life during the coming year, otherwise known as a death in the family. This can be summarized for your friends as: laundry = death.

Activities
Don't do anything the first day of the year you don't want to do the rest of the year. In other words, do the things you want to do. Sleep late. Call your loved ones and friends or better yet, go visit. Catch up on correspondence. Relax. Watch some tv or movies. Whatever you find enjoyable and wouldn't mind being able to do for the rest of the year. And whatever you do, don't spend it on a plane or traveling if at all possible. I flew one year, and spent a large chunk of my time in airports and on planes during the next 365 days. No joke. I also recommend NOT being hungover/sick unless you enjoy that feeling.

Don't pay bills on New Year's Day as this signifies money going out and none coming in. Never a good thing.

Luck
Turning a stool/chair on one leg = bad luck. Don't ask me about this one. I don't know. All I can tell you is that when rotating a chair or stool on New Year's Day, I always, always, pick it up off the floor completely before turning it. Better safe than sorry.

So consider yourself warned and indoctrinated. I can't make you follow the superstitions, all I can do is tell you about them and pray for your soul if you don't follow the New Year's Day Rules.

Holiday traditions: Part 5, miscellaneous

Always a miscellaneous. Always things that you just can't categorize. The OCD cataloging librarian in me is having fits because everything belongs somewhere, somewhere...

Decorations
Putting up decorations was always fun. Dad was in charge of the lights outside. We usually bought some pine swag when we got the tree, and he'd carefully wrap little lights around it and drape it around the porch roof. We even had a star that went up on the roof. We had lights for the trees, to go around the door, for the eaves (with swag, of course), but not really over the top like you'd think of over the top. We didn't twinkle, we didn't set anything to music, we just had swag and lights framing the house. I always thought it was very pretty and tasteful. At the end of the 12th days of Christmas, Dad took it all down and bagged each strand of lights in a zip top baggie, labeling each bag carefully for where the lights went (front bushes, window, door, etc.). I found a couple of those bags a few years ago, but the problem is we moved often enough that I have no idea which house the notes refer to!

Inside the house, we were pulling decorations out of the boxes, remembering each one, deciding where to put them and then running around the house putting things everywhere. By they time we were done, it looked like Christmas had thrown up all over our house. My sister and I had Christmas tree night lights, there was fake swag on the banister with lights woven through it, candy dishes, Christmas magnets for the fridge, candles and soaps in the bathrooms, Christmas books on the coffee table, and so on and so on. Christmas insanity. But somehow it never felt overwhelming to us kids. After the 12th day of Christmas, we would help gather everything up and put it in the living room to be boxed up again. We didn't help put it in the boxes, but we did help gather it.

As a family, we also had a contest. Who could find the last decoration. Whomever did won the glory of being able to gloat that they found it. I think Mom is the all time record holder, finding a Christmas decoration in JULY! Yeah, she wins. Bah humbug.

Cards
I do "holiday" cards because they either get done and mailed out around Thanksgiving or not until after Christmas. Just the way life goes. As an (apparently perpetual) student and someone that works in an academic environment, the first few weeks in December are insane...finals, end of the semester, etc. Cards just aren't a priority...finishing the 15 page research paper is. And doing cards is a complicated endeavor. The past few years I've had so much going on I've written the proverbial "newsletter" because otherwise my hand would fall off trying to write in each card. There's also verifying addresses (cross checking with last year's cards, searching e-mails for updated addresses I haven't written down yet, etc.) and updating my address label file. Then there's finding cards you like. For me, that means non-denominational happy holidays cards. Admittedly I do try to buy them during the after Christmas sale for the next year because they get expensive when you're buying more than 2 boxes. Finally, there's doing the actual cards. This means labeling and stamping the envelope, writing in the card, folding and stuffing in the note, and licking all those envelopes. Hopefully the envelope glue tastes good...but make sure you have a glass of water (or wine, or cider, or whatever your little heart desires) handy.

Some people have a check list for their cards. It looks like a spreadsheet with columns for years they check off if cards were sent and received. And if they don't get a card from someone for so many years, they stop sending them cards. I'm not one of those people. I'm probably organized enough, but it's just too much work and I don't care if you send me a card or not. I'll probably send you one even if you never send me a card. Some people just don't do cards. I get that, and I don't hold it against you. As long as you don't hold it against me for those years I just don't get cards done.