New Year's Eve Traditions

Now that my brother and I are grown up, we end up with these hybrid holiday mash-ups at my parents' place, whenever we can get together and do it. Last year, we had a "Christmas" turkey one Saturday in February, and I kept wrapped Christmas presents for 13 months to give on this Christmas. We're also more likely to have Thanksgiving dinners with friends sometime in early November. It all starts to feel a little bit schizophrenic.

I'm ready now to start 2012 off right. And most New Year's traditions and customs seem to revolve around the belief that what happens on the first day of the year sets the tone for the next 364. So what do I need to do on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day to make sure I don't blow the whole thing?

My grandma believes in the "First Footer," a Scottish tradition. She used to insist that a short, dark-haired man be the first person through her door after midnight (before anyone leaves), that he walk through the house and exit through a different door. Most traditions suggest that the First Footer should be a tall dark-haired man, instead, and that he should bring small gifts, like a lump of coal or some salt.

The way Grandma tells it, the shortest, darkest man in town can have a pretty great night walking in the front and out the back door of each house in the neighborhood, stopping for a drink on his way through and bringing a year's worth of good luck to all his neighbors.

My friend Amy tells me that putting your wallet outside in the last moments of the old year and bringing it back after the clocks strike 12 will bring money into your life in the New Year. I tried it with her one year, and I can't say I struck any notable windfalls. Oh well.

My mother always serves ham on New Year's, because her mother did, too. Although her reasoning is more logical than mystical, (we had turkey for Thanksgiving and Christmas, and two turkeys in a week is too much) some people believe that pigs bring good luck, because unlike other livestock, they root with their snouts while moving forward. Plus, they are delicious.

Then there are the traditions that we just follow because they are delicious, fun or safe. When we were kids, after my parents decided that even driving across town on New Year's Eve was too much to pull off, my mom made a big batch of homemade Chex mix and my dad picked up frozen puff pastry appetizers and an endless stack of Keystone Cops, Marx Brothers and Monty Python movies. I try to preserve some of that.

My favorite New Year's celebrations have been small parties with board games, low-maintenance snacks and ample beverages, where no one has to drive anywhere. I'm hoping to start 2012 off with those traditions this year, with as little anxiety as possible about "doing it wrong."

Good luck to all of us!