As many of us are making plans to bring in 2007 tonight with parties, family gatherings or worship services, some may also be thinking about how to adhere to some time-worn customs handed down through generations of family traditions. My own family had some of these traditions, mostly perpetuated by the beliefs of my widowed maternal grandmother. Her rules were the rules of family governance.
My most vivid childhood memory of New Year's Day included her belief that the first visitor to the house in the new year had to be a man to be sure good luck would come to the home throughout the year. So every Jan. 1, my dad would get up early and show up at my grandmother's house to be sure he got there before a woman (I never figured out who that would be) might decide to visit. In Europe, this practice is called "first footing."
Apparently, Grandma wasn't alone. Some of her widowed neighbors shared this superstition. When Daddy left Grandma's house, he would knock on the door of several other houses on the block and take one step inside to ensure that a man had crossed the threshold first in the new year.
We went searching for other New Year's traditions, even asked readers to send us some. I took a quick pass around the newsroom last week and found that my family traditions mirror some of the family beliefs of colleagues.
Some call them superstitions -- beliefs or ideas not based on any set of factual information, but acted upon by custom. Most superstitions, it seems, are perpetuated by lore, like my own grandmother's directions to the family.
One superstition to which we always adhered is that all Christmas decorations had to be taken down and packed away before the stroke of midnight on New Year's Day. So my family tradition for New Year's Eve night is not one of parties, but of taking down the tree and walking all over the house to be sure every single candy cane, stocking and ornament was accounted for, boxed and back in the attic.
Another notion is that of making sure we're not doing laundry or cleaning house on New Year's Day, for fear that what you do on the first day of the year may be something you will do in excess all year long. Heaven forbid that my cleaning needs would be any greater next year than the year before.
Advertiser Managing Editor Mel Gray, who grew up in Nebraska and worked in Washington, D.C., and New York City before moving to Alabama in 2005, said she wasn't familiar with this custom of not doing laundry on New Year's Day, but she told me, "I embrace this custom with a passion."
Then there is the noise. I still remember from childhood in Georgia, where fireworks were illegal, cradling my bed pillow over my ears because my father would take his pistol outside and shoot into the air at the stroke of midnight to bring in the new year. The belief is that the noise would scare away evil things. I learned later that the ringing of church bells was done for the same reason.
Of course, most folks around here are familiar with the custom of making sure we eat greens and black-eyed peas on New Year's Day -- greens for wealth and peas for luck. My guess is that grocery stores won't dare let us forget that one.
Through research online, I found a few other New Year's traditions: Avoid breaking things on the first day of the year so you won't continue to do that throughout the year; wear new clothes on Jan. 1 so you'll look good all year; pay off bills and loans by Dec. 31 so you won't take debt into the new year, and babies born on New Year's Day may be lucky throughout their lives.
The Chinese have their own set of customs for the Chinese New Year. Among them, from chinatownconnection.com: On the stroke of midnight, all doors and windows in the home must be open to allow the old year to depart and the new year to enter; crying on New Year's Day may mean tears all year long, therefore, mischief by children is tolerated so as not to spank them and cause tears to flow; and avoid using sharp objects like knives or scissors on New Year's Day to avoid cutting off fortune throughout the year.
In recent years, my husband daughter and I took on a new family tradition, that of attending Watch Night service at church to bring the new year in through spiritual observance of song and prayer.
Some believe Watch Night has African American origins because slaves watched the night in church on New Year's Eve 1862, the night before President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation went into effect. Of course, like many New Year's traditions, this one may be only lore, but it holds significance for many people.
This New Year, whether you are paying off debts, dressing well, eating peas for luck, first footing or watching the night with prayer at the stroke of midnight, Happy New Year and best wishes for all that's good for you and your family.
http://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/app ... 10303/1006
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
