New Year falls on different dates for different countries and religions. But in all cases there is a great significance on the fact that how it is started will be an omen for how the rest of the year will pan out. So not surprisingly there are a number of rituals that people follow at this time of year.
Do you do any of these?
- Red envelopes are given to children in China as part of their New Year celebrations; the envelopes contain money and are seen as lucky. The activity is carried out to bring that child success and wealth in the coming year.
- An old superstition is that something must come into the house before something leaves on New Year’s Day. This was often achieved by leaving a candle burning during New Year’s Eve until the next day. In those days the need for light, heat and cooking fuel for the whole year were paramount and so rituals focussed on achieving that.
- On the stroke of midnight, many people will jump up and down, or get up and sit back down, or will walk up and downstairs. The actions are all variations on a theme of ensuring that they will stand tall and be upwardly mobile throughout the year.
- To ensure financial prosperity one ritual is to tie a coin to a piece of string and place it either outside of a window or door. As the clock strikes midnight the string is pulled to ensure that the coin is retrieved into the house, but without the person needing to leave the building. The premise behind this superstition is for money to flow into the house and not out of it!
- Another money prosperity activity is to open all of the windows and doors of a house before New Year’s Eve is through to chase out the old year and let the new one come in.
- Many of us will get calendars as a stocking filler or Christmas gift, but you may think twice about hanging it in advance, a new calendar should be hung on New Year’s Day to avoid 365 days of bad luck!
- Lastly an activity that we now might think of as an early form of divination was Bible Dipping. On New Year’s Day people would gather around a family bible placed on a table. They would take it in turn to open a random page and place their index finger somewhere on the text. The others would read the selected text and try to interpret what might come of that person in the next year in light of the individual’s circumstances.
Ref: The Encyclopaedia of Superstitions by Deborah Murrell
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