Friday open thread: new year's rituals

[dolorosa_12]

2025 is off to a fairly good start for me: my first day back at work today went smoothly (and, astonishingly, my various inboxes were reasonably empty, although I had to laugh at the student who sent us emails asking for help with a research project on a) Christmas Day and b) New Year's Day — that's keen), I've been swimming, I've read some good books.

My prompt this week is about new year's rituals — not resolutions, but things you do every year, around the turning point of the year. These might be cultural (like the Spanish tradition of eating grapes on the chimes counting down to midnight, for example), they could be specific to your family or household, or something individual.

Mine are fairly boring:

The house has to be clean before the change over to the new year (this makes me feel as if I'm scrubbing the grime of the previous year away and starting with a fresh, new slate)

Just after the stroke of midnight, I post a song on social media, with lyrics chosen to reflect my feelings about the new year (2025's was 'Vidlik' by Onuka; the relevant lyrics in translation: Countdown. Only. Future. Ready)

I have to start 1st January with a walk (this year, tragically, it didn't happen because a) I had a terrible cold and b) it was pouring with rain with howling wind)

The first book of the year (which I aim to have read by the end of 1st January) has to be a good one; I tend to save something up that I trust to be excellent, and usually my judgement holds up

What about you?

Comments

[watersword]

I update my financial-tracking spreadsheet and my resume.

[corvidology]

Snap!

Also, my calendar.

[dolorosa_12]

How practical and responsible!

[lyr]

I do the housecleaning thing too! I also like to start new creative projects, even just a little, to give them a symbolic hold on the year.

[dolorosa_12]

I also know people who like to clean the house on 1st January (and I can see the symbolism of that too), but for me I prefer the sense of sweeping the previous year away with a clean slate for the new one.

I love the 'start as you mean to go on' sense of your ritual with the creative projects.

[raven]

Other than the first footing, which we didn't do this year because like a weirdo I came home on New Year's Eve at 11.30, I always want, desperately, to clean the house on 1 Jan and very rarely do.

[dolorosa_12]

First footing is such a great ritual!

[thawrecka]

My only ritual is that I like to be at a celebration for NYE/New Year's Day. Something about being with people counting down until the new year and then celebrating feels like it bodes well for the new year beginning for me (and isn't just an excuse for a party, though I also like any excuse for a party). In years when I'm at home alone having a quiet one instead it always feels like it bodes ill, and unsettles me. I need the ritual of ringing in the new year.

And then I go back home and just go back to whatever I was doing daily before the new year started 🤣

[dolorosa_12]

I really understand that, although for me it's the complete opposite. I realised over the years that I hate being out at a big group celebration for New Year's Eve, and it creates a sense of pressure and expectation that I find really stressful. I used to enjoy doing small dinner parties at people's houses — there were two other couples in Cambridge that we used to hang out with on New Year's Eve, but one couple moved to Vienna, and other couple moved to Belfast — so now it's just a chill movie night at home with champagne and canapes, and I much prefer it.

[ermingarden]

My family has a traditional New Year's meal, passed down from my Latvian grandmother but having undergone some drift over the past few decades in the U.S. We eat peas and onions - originally this would have been grey peas, pelēkie zirņi, but those are hard to come by here, so we have green peas - and fish with scales. The fish scales, because they look like coins, stand for prosperity in the new year, as do the peas. The onions stand for the tears of the old year. (I also like to think of eating the onions mixed in with the peas as an acknowledgment that there will always be sorrow in the new year, because that's the nature of life - but we hope the sorrow is outweighed by joy!)

When I visited Latvia a few years ago, I did have the traditional dish, pelēkie zirņi ar speķi, grey peas mixed with onions and bacon. It's hearty and delicious! But for me, when I think of the New Year's meal, I will always think first of the green peas and pearl onions that we had when I was a kid. (This year, I made the lazy version: I heated some frozen peas up in the microwave and mixed in raw green onion.)

My grandmother left Latvia as a refugee from the second Soviet invasion. She rarely talked about her homeland or her family, and she didn't speak Latvian at home; she said that she had to shut the door on her life there in order to build a life here. But this was one of the few Latvian traditions she passed on to my mom and me. It must have meant a lot to her.

[dolorosa_12]

This was incredibly moving to read. How precious this tradition must be for her to have kept it and passed it down to you, given she let almost everything else go. I love that you're still cooking a version of it to this day.

[yarnofariadne]

When I was a teenager, one year Turner Classic Movies put on a marathon of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers movies all day New Year's Eve & Day. I loved that idea, and used to watch it on TCM. When they stopped doing it, I started programming my own marathon and branching out a little from Fred & Ginger. I've been doing a classic movie musicals marathon on New Year's Eve for about 20 years now, and for the past 9 years we've done the same two movies for the ending: An American in Paris to close out the year (the movie ends at a New Year's Eve party) and Singin' in the Rain to cross midnight. I'm usually able to time it so that either "Good Mornin'" or "Singin' in the Rain" is the first song of the year, both of which make me happy - this year, it was the latter.

[dolorosa_12]

That is a fabulous tradition! We've been doing a movie marathon for the past five years or so, but not with classic films — they tend to be themed in other ways (so one year we watched all three LotR films, one year we watched all three MCU Thor films, this year we watched Luc Besson films, etc). I love your impeccably timed viewing programme, with the thematically appropriate first song of the year!

[tactilemuse]

We also do a walk on New Years Day to start the new year off right. I also sit a stack of coins outside the door for good fortune and as an offering.

[dolorosa_12]

A walk is such a perfect way to start off the new year. Back when I was still living in Australia, I'd go swimming every New Year's Day — either at the beach, or at a fantastic outdoor lap pool right on the harbour — but now that I live in the northern hemisphere, that's no longer feasible (the indoor pool I use normally is closed on New Year's Day, and outdoor swimming in the depths of winter does not appeal).

I love the symbolism of the stack of coins.

[charlottenewtons]

I usually work on New Year's eve so I tend to do my cleaning on new year's day instead. I also like to write out all the birthdays on my wall calendar for the year.

[dolorosa_12]

Oh wow, that's very organised of you! I only remember birthdays (unless it's a close family member) if Facebook prompts me — your method is much better!

[charlottenewtons]

I used to use Facebook to remind me but I log in to it so infrequently now that it's easier to write them down somewhere I will see them all to remember.