Around the world, when the New Year chimes in, there is hope. Hope for a year of prosperity, abundance, and goodwill.
It's universal.
There’s one tradition that I love, and I wanted to share it with you because your children can join in too.
In many parts of the world, there is a New Year's tradition of reflecting on the things that didn't go well during the past year and making the intention to leave them behind.
The Practice
The tradition some people practice is to write down all of the things they want to leave behind on pieces of paper and before the clock strikes midnight, they throw the paper into the fire.
Now they are ready to move into the New Year without taking the unwanted baggage with them. What's appealing about this tradition is that it's not only based on hope, but there is a clear intention behind it.
It's a reminder that we have the power to make significant changes to our lives, whether it’s to work out regularly, eat better, or spend more time with loved ones; we have the possibility for improving ourselves.
We make the intention, create the space for it, and get to work.
Easier said than done, I know.
Include the Children
However, it's never too early to teach our children the importance of clear intentions and the power of vision and change.
If your children are old enough to write, they can join you by writing down anything they want to leave behind, and they can make the intention to do something differently for the New Year.
If they are too young to write, then you may have to do the writing for them. It would be fun to keep copies of what they want to leave behind to look back on years later.
Another thing that’s valuable about traditions, is that the tradition you can bring into your children's lives, the more things they have to look forward to during the year.
Traditions around holidays are landmarks that define certain times of the year. They are also times for shared memories and building family bonds.
On a larger scale, traditions are the means by which we pass on our culture and customs to the next generation.
“Tradition: how the vitality of the past enriches the life of the present. ”
Some Traditions
My grandfather was from a family of Greek immigrants, so we grew up with a very big Greek family. For the New Year's, there was a special cake that we baked with a 25-cent piece hidden somewhere inside the cake.
As children, there was always a lot of suspense to see who would get the quarter, because whoever got it was guaranteed good luck for the next year.
And my grandmother was from Georgia. The southern tradition is to bake black-eyed peas for dinner as good luck. Eating black-eyed peas on New Year’s Day is considered good luck because after the Civil War, that's all there was to eat.
It was actually the food for horses that kept the Southerners alive after the war. Growing up, we celebrated this tradition, too, with the typical southern accompaniments of collard greens, cornbread, and honey butter.
Honestly, the more traditions you have, the merrier.
Happy New Year!
May it be a good year full of hope, prosperity, and abundance.
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Elizabeth Y. Hanson is a homeschooling thought-leader and the founder of Smart Homeschooler.
As an Educator, Homeschool Emerita, Writer, and Love and Leadership Certified Parenting Coach, she has 23 years of experience working in education.
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—John Taylor Gatto Distinguished educator, public speaker, and best-selling author of Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling. For a copy of The Short Angry History of Compulsory Schooling, click here.
