New Year's traditions and good luck charms

Is there a New Year's tradition that you follow for good luck in the upcoming year?

 

My family always had roast pork and sauerkraut with mashed potatoes on New Year's Day. The German tradition is that sauerkraut brought good luck. As I really don't like pork, I'd just prefer the sauerkraut and mashed potatoes. Maybe I'll just do that this year as it's my only day off this week.

 

Greek tradition. The Grandma always bakes a large cake and hidden inside it is a gold coin. The cake is sliced up so that every member in the family is designated a piece. Each family member's home is also cut a separate piece.

The oldest person in the family (grandma) cuts the cake in a precise order. The oldest person in the family first, followed by their immediate family members, followed by the family's home. Then on to the next oldest person in the family, their immediate family and their home. This process is repeated until every person has a piece and every home has a piece.

The person who gets the coin in their piece will have good luck for the next year. If the coin ends up in the piece that belongs to someone's home, it is supposed to give good luck to the entire home (I guess that mean's the roof won't cave in or something).

Also, the cake is delicious and no, no one has ever eaten the coin. The pieces are cut very thin so you can see it and not choke. That would be a bad start to the "good luck year."

 

Black eyed peas is the food. Also, no washinging or irning done in the household. Tradition says that you are washing and ironing someone out of your family. Don't want that on my head.

 

Always pork, sauerkraut and kielbasa.

 

Always black-eyed peas, pork and sauerkraut as a kid. I've carried on that tradition or whatever as an adult. Not exactly the best hangover food, but whatever.

 

I was talking to a friend about this today. She grew up in the Philippines and her family's New Year's traditions are:

1. at midnight, open all the doors and windows in the house briefly to let the luck of the New Year in and whatever bad luck from the previous year out.
2. have a significant amount of cash in your wallet, to ensure a prosperous year.
3. try not to be sick, to ensure a year of health.
4. try to have your family together, to ensure a year of togetherness.

 

Never had one, but now I'm thinking about a big bowl of Lucky Charms.

 

They are magically delicious.

 

Maybe it's just the southern in me, but I've always done black eyed peas and greens. One for luck, the other for money. The washing and ironing was a thing my mother/grandmothers did, too.

Also, you can't take anything like trash or anything out of the house that day.

 

Watching the National Championship Game...

Oh.

 

When I'm at karaoke, I usually try to sing all the songs that stuck with me in the previous year, even if I'd gotten away from them over the course of a few months. This year, however, the karaoke place I frequent had CDs broken that bore two of my most important songs of 2009: "Eminence Front" by The Who and "Kashmir" by Led Zeppelin.