New Year’s Day; a time of renewal and hope for the year ahead.  I find different customs interesting, particularly regarding New Year’s Day.  A lot seem to center around food, superstition, and prosperity.  Apparently in Ireland it is customary to bang loaves of bread loudly against walls and doors in order to drive out evil spirits from one’s home.  Ironically, it’s potatoes in Peru.  Three are used to determine a person’s fortune for the New Year.  In Spain the first 12 seconds of the New Year are dedicated to consuming 12 grapes — one for each month ahead.  And anyone from the South knows you’d BETTER eat your black eyes!  My Mother once chased after our church van when I was 15 and our youth group was on its way to a ski trip in Colorado.  She literally ran the van down and stood inside it until she physically watched me swallow black eyed peas steaming from a mug she’d brought before we were allowed to leave.  She wasn’t superstitious, mind you, I just had to eat my black eyes on New Year’s Day.  Oh the humiliation.  The lesson I learned from that is don’t ever try to outwit your mother.  Eating them is supposed to bring good luck and prosperity.  There is an old Southern saying, “Peas for pennies, greens for dollars, and cornbread for gold.”  Continuing Mama’s superstition, ahem, “tradition” I cooked black-eyed peas, Jiffy cornbread and (my own revision) spinach for greens.  I came across this blessing whose author is unknown:

On New Year’s Day and the whole year through, I hope the kindness you’ve given to others returns many times to you.  May hope, love, and warmth be in your heart’s possessing, and may the New Year bring you and yours many blessings.

Happy New Year!  2016