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Comparing New Year’s traditions
In keeping with last week’s column about how mountain families celebrated Christmas in earlier years, this week we’ll take a look back at local New Year’s traditions and see how they compare to the ones my Georgia grandmother unwaveringly observed.
John Parris’ chapter in “The History of Jackson County” provided a wealth of information on the ways people in this area have historically marked the arrival of another year.
Central to the day’s dinner – just as it was at my grandmother Elsie’s table – were black-eyed peas cooked with hog jowl. Failure to eat black-eyed peas was thought to be an invitation for trouble, and any bad luck that happened during the following year was blamed on the omission.
Jackson County old-timers, according to Parris, believed just as firmly as my grandmother did that the price of a pound of black-eyed peas and a hog jowl was the difference between having the money you needed during the year instead of empty pockets.
“There may be nothing to eating black-eyed peas and hog jowl on New Year’s Day, but again there might be a heap in it,” Parris quotes one old-timer as saying. “I like to be on the safe side. Besides, black-eyed peas and hog jowl is mighty fine eating.”
Back in Georgia, collard, turnip or mustard greens were just as essential as the peas and maybe more so. The way my grandmother told it, eating the black-eyed peas brought good luck, but it was the greens that would make sure you had paper money – greenbacks – to purchase your needs during the coming year.
Superstitions about money seem prominent in both places.
Parris also says that people used to believe that if you had money in your pocket on the first day of the year, then you’d have money all year.
A corollary to that one, according to Parris, is that if you wear new clothes on the year’s first day, you’ll have plenty of clothing all year.
Preachers were regarded as a good sign also; Parris said his grandmother always told him that if the preacher visits on New Year’s Day, the family will have luck all year. Some visitors were not so welcome, however. It was thought to be unlucky if a woman or a widower was the first to call on New Year’s Day.
Annother way to ensure good luck was to clean your chimney on New Year’s Day, Parris said. Folks thought that if you cleaned the chimney that day, good luck would descend on the household
Folks of Parris’ grandmother’s day believed that friendships made or renewed on the first day of the year would last for the next 12 months.
It seems like my grandmother had a few similar superstitions, but since I didn’t write them down, I can’t check.
So that’s my New Year’s resolution: To write down all the neat stuff people tell me so I won’t forget it.
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