Mysterious Monday: New Year's Superstitions

Happy New Year to everyone! I dug up a few superstitions related to the turning of the old year into the new.

Make sure to kiss someone you love to ensure warm relationships throughout the year. If you don’t kiss someone you care about, they say that your relationships will be cold through 2013. Wonder what happens if you’re doing the horizontal tango at the stroke of midnight? So to speak.

Make lots of noise to drive away the evil spirits who lurk in the veil between the worlds. At certain points in the year, the end of it being one of those points, the veil between the worlds is thinner, allowing all sorts of ghosts and demons and beasties of a naughty sort to step through. They don’t like loud noises, though, so enjoy those fireworks if it’s legal in your neck of the woods.

If it’s possible, settle your debts before January 1^st to bring good fortune in the new year. This is a tough one for many of us. I can only remember one solvent New Year as a married adult. Time to turn that one around. Be careful, though, not to pay anyone off on January 1^st as you will not be able to keep money around for the next year.

The first one to enter your house on January 1^st should be a dark-haired male if you wish good fortune in the coming year. And don’t let anything out of your house on the 1^st without something coming in first—some people go so far as to toss something out the door on December 31^st, attaching it with a string and pulling it in the next morning.

For some reason, eating Black Eyed Peas on New Year’s Day is good luck. That’s a stroke of luck I will never have, as I simply can’t stand the things. Honestly, I never even heard of them until I was grown.

Full wallets mean prosperity in the year ahead, as full cupboards mean full bellies in the year ahead. My cupboards are always full—a leftover from lean years when we ate only thanks to WIC basics, care packages from our parents, and the half-priced day-old bread. I have yet to keep full wallets, but perhaps I’ll try putting a bunch of singles in it and see if that brings me prosperity in 2013.

It is said that doing a token amount of work will make you successful in the new year, but you should never take on a project that you cannot start and finish on New Year’s Day.

My favorite one was probably made up by an overworked housewife—it is bad luck to wash clothes or dishes on New Year’s Day; it will “drain away” your fortunes with the dirty water. Whoever made that one up gets my New Year’s kiss!

My other favorites are to drain the dregs of the bottle and to dance around a tree in the open air—kind of go hand-in-hand, yes? I have faint memories of doing such things in the past, though not necessarily on New Year’s Eve/Day.

I hope you all have a safe and happy New Year's celebration and that 2013 finds you happy, healthy, and prosperous.