A New Year – Traditions
The idea of celebrating the beginning of a new year is ancient and transcends culture and geography. And the traditions followed during those First Day celebrations vary widely.
I like the Scottish tradition of cleaning the house from top to bottom on New Year’s Eve. The expression “clean sweep” could certainly apply to that activity, which includes sweeping out the fireplace.
Jewish families deep-clean their homes in preparation for Passover, but Rosh Hashanah marks the first and second days of the Jewish year, and traditions then include hearing the sounding of a ram’s horn (shofar), lighting candles, and eating festive meals with sweet delicacies such as challah bread and apples dipped in honey. Count me in!
In Spain, many people eat grapes on New Year’s Eve. According to custom, if you eat a dozen grapes by the time the clock finishes chiming midnight, you will have good luck for the year ahead.
I spent Christmas in Sorrento, Italy this year, and asked my host what she would be doing on New Year’s Eve. A local tradition, she told me, is the lighting of the ciuccio di fuoco, a donkey made of fabric stuffed with fireworks. The donkey represents the old year and it is set on fire at midnight to ignite the pyrotechnics. It symbolizes burning and obliterating bad memories from the year before. At midnight, she said, the streets would be full of people exchanging good wishes, toasting the New Year, and enjoying the festive atmosphere in that magical city filled with lights and colors. It was easy to imagine, having seen those same streets crowded with happy people on Christmas Eve as we walked back to our hotel from a sacred concert.
Growing up in an enclave of Brits, I enjoy reprising the English and Scottish tradition of singing “Auld Lang Syne” with family and friends at midnight. That nostalgic tear-jerker is based on a poem by Robert Burns and reflects on the importance of remembering old friends and shared experiences.
In contrast, citizens in Ecuador, “parade around the city with scarecrows built to look like popular politicians and cultural icons—and at the stroke of midnight, said scarecrows are burnt to a crisp to cleanse the new year of everything evil,” according to Carrie Weisman and Morgan Greenwald of Best Life, That tradition particularly appeals to me as we begin 2025.
Hopes for the Future
It has been a difficult year, but we got through it. Now it’s time to look ahead with confidence and optimism. Find opportunities to build up, not tear down. To encourage dialog, not to shut down communication. I am determined to go forward waging peace and defending our democracy. I hope you will too.
Happy New Year! Marlene
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Postscript:
Several of you have commented on my family’s experience with StoryWorth and asked about the final product. The printed book, A Collection of Life Stories, was on my doorstep when I returned from Italy. It is beautiful, and destined to be a family
heirloom. Only five copies have been printed, but I’m as proud of our family’s achievement as if it were a best seller.
Marlene Anne Bumgarner writes primarily about food, family, and traditions. Her 2020 memoir, Back to the Land in Silicon Valley, is about raising children, animals, and vegetables on a rural plot of land in the 1970s. Organic Cooking for (not-so-organic) Families will be out soon, and she’s now working on an update to The Book of Whole Grains while also crafting a cozy mystery, Death on a Sunny Afternoon – a Harriet Palmer Mystery.
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