Close to Nowhere

According to the Old Farmer’s Almanac website, even who you kiss at midnight on New Year’s Eve is a risky business.

And I quote...

• Kissing your beloved at the stroke of midnight ensures 12 months of continuing affection. Failing to do so is said to produce the opposite effect.

• The first person to enter your home after midnight foretells the kind of luck you’ll have in the coming year. A tall, dark, handsome male bearing small gifts is said to bring the best luck. According to this same tradition, no one should leave the house until someone first enters from outside, and nothing should be removed from the house on New Year’s Day.

• In the South, it is believed that eating black-eyed peas, ham hocks, and collard greens or cabbage on New Year’s Day will attract a financial windfall.

• Eating anything that forms a circle – such as donuts – leads to good fortune in the coming year.

• It’s also suggested you should not eat certain things on New Year’s Eve, in order to prevent bad luck for the year ahead, such as lobster and chicken. Since lobsters can move backwards, eating them before the stroke of midnight may cause setbacks. For chickens, the idea is similar as they can scratch backwards. Other types of winged fowl are also discouraged as your good luck could fly away.

Google says lots of interesting things about doing laundry:

• Don’t do laundry on New Year’s Day or a member of the family will be washed away (die) during the coming year.

• Doing laundry on New Year’s Day will wash a year of good fortune down the drain.

• Don’t do laundry on New Year’s Day or you will have more laundry than usual to do all year.

One of my personal favorites is what Pop’s grandmother told me when we were first married.

She said whatever you do on New Year’s Day is what you’ll do all year. I try to hug everyone I love and I never, ever clean the bathrooms that day.

And it goes without saying that I’m not going to do laundry either.

Happy New Year!