So … do you have a family tradition for New Years Eve?
I don’t. Though I love the idea. I get up early so I do not stay up late but I like the idea of the New Year being celebrated. The freshness of it. The promise. And we all need a new start – right? Another chance.
At home in New Zealand – it is beach time – New Years is a summer celebration and for the life of me I cannot remember my parents celebrating it at all. But I love the new-ness of a New Year. The forgiveness. The pass. The Great Cosmos smiling through a dusty sunbeam and saying – you are OK, you did your best, now let me see you do better. Do you want to do better? If you want to do better – I am with you.
In New Zealand we begin the new school year in February. So it is ALL new. Exercise books, teachers, Life. So I want to have a spring clean at the end of December. 
Move those cobwebs along. But here on the prairies of Illinois it is a spring clean in winter. A New Year makes me want to clean out all the old, the detritus, the faded and superfluous. I want to open all the windows and flush out all the old smells. Which is a little uncomfortable when we have only climbed to just above freezing by the end of the day. But I do it anyway. Bring on that winter air!
Or you will get this! By morning this condensation will be frozen solid. On the inside!
Elsie is wondering whether she has to be on a diet too. Maybe I can palm her a flake or two of good hay when Queenie is not watching? But Queenie, like all good bullies, is always watching.
I made two batches of soap yesterday. One is the Ugly Soap with ground coffee, lemongrass oil (from the farm) and steel cut oats – for my daughter. The other made with Rose Essence for me. All my soaps are three parts meadow raised lard – one part olive oil.
I hope you have a lovely day.
Tell me a little of your New Years traditions if you have time. I love traditions. I want one.
your friend on the farmy,
celi
The Kitchen's Garden 
91 responses to “New Years Eve”
Do you have a post about your soap recipe?
I consider myself to still be learning, but maybe one day I will post the process and my references.. I will be making another batch shortly.. my most important recipe making tool is the lye calculator.. http://www.brambleberry.com/Pages/Lye-Calculator.aspx..
No traditions here, sorry. Have a wonderful 2015!
You too Debra! c
Your soap looks good enough to eat!
Jock being a rabid Scot should celebrate New Year’s Eve (Sain Sylvestre here) by getting drunk and first footing all the neighbours carying a lump of coal and a bottle of whisky, but real life intervenes, and for the last many years, we just go to bed at the usual time. We shall celebrate the arrival of 2015 tomorrow, with lunch chez our friends Agnes, Stephane and the lovely Constance (6)
The gravel on the North side of the house is solid white with frost, and on the South side the washing is drying nicely in the bright sunshine. Jock is scared to take the new car out on the icy road, so we shall walk this afternoon!
Love,
ViVx
My soap has set beautifully, in a couple of hours i will cut it and set it out to cure.. I love the cutting! Sun on the washing sounds good! careful walking on the icy roads though.. wonderful that you finally have your new car.. c
we always ate pork and something cabbage related on new yrs.nothing poultry related allowed.
pork is allowed , because pigs root forward as they eat,forward is good
not allowed chicken because they scratch area, then step back to eat.
do not want to go backwards
and we burn all 2014 calenders at midnite so bad luck not follow into new yr.
but as i get older, burning takes place earlier in day, and i fast asleep by midnite
Well I certainly have pork!! I will happily burn this calendar too.. and hang up my new one!.. have a great evening ron.. c
We watch A LOT of football this time of year college and professional. Like you, I like to get organized and clean up after all the holidays. No resolutions just resetting some habits.
Resetting the good habits, that makes sense! Thank you candy.. c
We always have poached cod fillet with fiery mustard sauce, and new potatoes. It’s a Danish thing that Peder’s family always did. We carry on the tradition. And it must be fresh cod – not frozen and pumped full of water for added weight. A very happy new year to you, c, and to all my farmy friends.
Sounds great… no fresh cod out here for me on the prairies though. (cod goes on and off the endangered list I think – having grown up with fishermen I have always felt sad for the fish) Happy New Year to you all!/.. c
Since my children were small it has always been a not-so-healthful-food fest for dinner…pizza, chips and the like, fizzy juice and champagne…definitely staying home-no midnight revelry in a loud bar or party. Now that the kiddies have moved on, and I can’t stay awake past 9 PM it will still be a pizza dinner, maybe a bottle of craft beer and off to bed before the neighbors start their rockets and celebrations at midnight.
I would love to be on your farm tonight, all quiet and snuggled in some hay with only the sounds of the animals for excitement…
Happy New Year Miss C!
Pizza! Damn this diet i am on.. that sounds delish.. c
No real traditions here but we have a few friends and neighbours who don’t have TV, so they are coming over on the first this year to watch the Mizzou game in the afternoon. I don’t watch football, but I enjoy visiting with our friends. Headed to friend’s house this evening with my 18-year-old son -we’ll probably ring in the New Year – might need to catch a nap before I go! 😉 No drinking at their house, but i’ll probably raise a glass of expensive Scotch whisky when we get home. Looking forward to a better year.
A nice glass of scotch before bed sounds perfect!.. c
There’s a tradition my mother imported from the Netherlands, but it was saved for the adults or for when we grew up. You have a glass of champagne and 12 grapes. You have to eat all 12 grapes, washed down with the champagne, between the first and final strike of 12. Getting it right means luck for the year. If you don’t manage it, well, you got some nice grapes and a glass of champagne, which is lucky enough for me! I wish you a healthy, happy and fortunate New Year, Miss C, you and all your furry-faced friends. I’m not staying up this year; I have new painkillers for my hip which are making me wonderfully sleepy, and I can’t have a drink on top of them, so I think I’ll just tuck myself into bed shortly and have a gentle day tomorrow, praying for rain…
I love this tradition, such a shame I have no grapes here.. are the new painkillers working? are you getting some sleep?… c
They work a treat, and I got a really good night. It was the first totally pain free evening in 3 months yesterday, and I was sitting there with a big smile on my face. Happiness is a tiny white pill with a big kick!
most excellent!..c
Having lived in Barcelona for a few years (and still having lots of friends there) I generally eat 12 grapes with cava as the clock chimes midnight. I’m going to a roast suckling pig lunch tomorrow – the pig is on vacation from Barcelona – you have to wonder what the customs officers thought when they scanned the suitcase 😉
I can just imagine.. Have a wonderful lunch!.. c
Thanks Cecilia – Happy New Year to you and everyone on the farmy 🙂
Being, initially from the South, there was football and blackeyed peas. Since moving to New Mexico we’ve added tamales and pasolè. Quite a responsibly to eat all that for luck in the new year but I think I’ll be adding burning my old calendar to my traditions. Have a quiet evening and a Happy New Year!
The black eyed peas? How does that work?… c
Eating blackeyed peas, the way my Grandmother made them with rice was supposed to bring luck. Besides making them a complete protein, each peas represents a coin, a pot full representing prosperity.
Our no tradition became our tradition. Quiet night in, just the three of us, take out and movie.
We are asleep before midnight, safe and sound.
Oh take outs.. I would love to do that! c
New Year’s Day Tradition – eating Black Eyed Peas for good luck. Our tradition dictates that they have to be dried peas (I’m cheating this year and using canned) and cooked for long hours on the stove or in a crock pot with lots of smokey pork (hocks, ham or bacon). I prefer salt pork! (oh, please don’t tell Sheila)
From Wikipedia on the Black Eye Pea tradition:
There are several legends as to the origin of this custom.
The “good luck” traditions of eating black-eyed peas at Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, are recorded in the Babylonian Talmud (compiled circa 500 CE), Horayot 12A: “Abaye [d. 339 CE] said, now that you have established that good-luck symbols avail, you should make it a habit to see qara (bottle gourd), rubiya (black-eyed peas, Arabic lubiya), kartei (leeks), silka (either beets or spinach), and tamrei (dates) on your table on the New Year.” However, the custom may have resulted from an early mistranslation of the Aramaic word rubiya (fenugreek).
A parallel text in Kritot 5B states one should eat these symbols of good luck. The accepted custom (Shulhan Aruh Orah Hayim 583:1, 16th century, the standard code of Jewish law and practice) is to eat the symbols. This custom is followed by Sephardi and Israeli Jews to this day.
Another suggested beginning of the tradition dates back to the Civil War, when Union troops, especially in areas targeted by General William Tecumseh Sherman, typically stripped the countryside of all stored food, crops, and livestock, and destroyed whatever they could not carry away. At that time, Northerners considered “field peas” and field corn suitable only for animal fodder, and did not steal or destroy these humble foods.
In the Southern United States, the peas are typically cooked with a pork product for flavoring (such as bacon, ham bones, fatback, or hog jowl), diced onion, and served with a hot chili sauce or a pepper-flavored vinegar.
The traditional meal also includes collard, turnip, or mustard greens, and ham. The peas, since they swell when cooked, symbolize prosperity; the greens symbolize money; the pork, because pigs root forward when foraging, represents positive motion. Cornbread also often accompanies this meal.
Thanks Pat, for that tutorial. I always wondered the significance of black-eyed peas on New Years Day.
wow that was fast!.. excellent.. I think i have some and can cook them over the fire..
Not much of a New Year person, although I agree with your sentiments about a fresh start and all that goes with that. Of course we are English but for the Scots surrounding us here on this Island, Hogmanay is HUGE! All the best,
Christine
Hogmanay.. hmm… well have a restful evening.. that will be me too!.. c
I was born in Europe, between Italy and Austria, fell in love with an American and moved to Ohio over 30 years ago. We celebrate New Years evening rather quit, just he two of us. A few of my European traditions are kept alive in our house, like the New Years tradition. A small amount of lead is melted in a tablespoon (by holding a flame under the spoon) and then poured into a bowl or bucket of water. The resulting pattern is interpreted to predict the coming year. For instance, if the lead forms a ball that means luck will roll your way. The shape of an anchor means help in need. Sometimes its hard to even see anything besides a piece of melted tin. It’s fun and very entertaining 🙂 Happy New Year
Oh I love that idea, we did that once years and years ago and i got a dragon fly! fair dinkum! I had forgotton about that .. now where can I get some lead?.. c
Good question, you can use tin as well 🙂
Solder wire?