3…2…1… Happy New Year! You see fireworks exploding in the sky, hear party blowers squawking, and metal pots with wooden spoons banging together. Every year, the turn of December 31 to January 1st welcomes an opportunity to make changes to your life for the new year. There are certain preparations you can make and things you can do to lock in your good luck for the coming year… if you believe.
From eating certain foods to noting the first person through your door, superstitious activities take place worldwide on the eve of January.
Some of the most common superstitions revolve around grapes. Eating 12 grapes, and timing them on each of the 12 chimes of midnight is said to bring you luck, success, and positive energy for each of the 12 months of the new year. If you don’t feel up to the challenge of timing out your grape-eating, another superstition involving grapes is to eat them underneath a table. Doing this, you might find yourself with luck in your love life in the new year.
If you’re feeling hungry and don’t want to eat grapes but still want some good luck, there are some alternatives. There are many foods from different cultures like noodles that symbolize long life, cornbread that resembles gold (money), black-eyed peas, pork, lentils, collard greens, and many other foods to eat on New Year’s Day that represent good luck and fortune.
On the other hand, some foods to avoid are things with wings, like birds, as they could make good luck fly away. Another is foods like lobster, shrimp, or crab, which all walk sideways in the water, as they may bring you setbacks.
Something you can do to combat bad luck is to be wary of who enters your home. According to the superstition known as “the first foot,” the first person to enter your house after midnight sets the tone for the year ahead. Depending on the person’s characteristics or mood they bring, it could influence your household’s fortune in the new year.
If you’re into fashion, wearing a polka dot pattern on New Year’s Eve brings wealth and prosperity. Different colored underwear also brings different things, like red for romance, white for peace, or yellow for wealth.
At the end of the day, there are countless superstitions you can abide by to try and shape the new year. With that, Happy New Year!
