Just wondering: Are there things that any of y'all do for the New Year, to ensure luck and/or prosperity?

In southern New Mexico, we follow the southern U.S. tradition of eating black-eyed peas for luck on New Years Day.

In Zimbabwe, everyone flocks to Kariba where there is the biggest party of the year. It used to be Nyanga at the other side of the country... now it is Kariba.

Will be travelling there this year... never been before... should be fun.

<MartinB. Please no mention on this topic, am so over it right now and don't need issues>

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"I've always believed that it would be up to the young people to save the Endangered Wildlife for the future." - George Adamson.

Kariba? I wish I could go...

Instead, I will be dining with the cousins as usual...probably at the kids' table (still). These are the kind of events that I always make sure to bring books to.

Um.... Sleep?

__________________________________
'We're all mad here. I'm mad, you're mad." [said the Cat.]
"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "Or you wouldn't have come here."
- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures In Wonderland

My "tradition" the last few years has been to fly across the country on New Years--not my favorite day to fly! But my school always seems to pick January 2 as the day to start the new term.

I am heading to Kariba tomorrow, one of the traditions is to have biltong... so Dad went out and bought a whole whack of the substance, doubt there will be any left by tomorrow morning!

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"I've always believed that it would be up to the young people to save the Endangered Wildlife for the future." - George Adamson.

Oooh! What is biltong?

Biltong is dried(uncooked) meat that is spiced with peppers, salt, sometimes with chillies and piri piri sauce stuff. As far as I know you cure the fresh meat in super salty water with some vinegar before rolling it in more salt and spices and you hang it to dry in a hot dry room. It is simply devine!

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"I've always believed that it would be up to the young people to save the Endangered Wildlife for the future." - George Adamson.

Ahhhh! Me wants it....

__________________________________
'We're all mad here. I'm mad, you're mad." [said the Cat.]
"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "Or you wouldn't have come here."
- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures In Wonderland

Biltong is fantastic but Droewors is better.

In the American southeast, it is tradional to get really drunk, then at midnight you blow off a finger or two with fireworks, get back from hospital at 4:30 am and sleep until the 3rd of January. I'm so glad I'm originally from Iowa...

What do they do in Iowa?

In Northern New Mexico, it is a tradition to get really drunk, and/or then shoot guns off into the air. Unfortunately, bullets also obey the law of gravity.

I will be staying in tonight.

Cheers, y'all!

Depends entirely on whether fireworks are available. For some reason, in Oklahoma, you can only buy them around the 4th of July, but not for New Years. I guess they're worried about grass fires. So we just turn on the New Year's special from New York and watch the Ball drop in Times Square.

In Houston, we'd go to our Neighbor's New Year's party, where we set off fireworks, and watched them set off fireworks, and if we happened to be visiting my grandfather on the gulf coast, we could go down to the beach and watch fireworks displays at the marinas.

But fireworks + booze, yeah, I can see some of the folks around here blasting off their fingers. That's why we don't drive on New Years, it expands your life expectancy.

Dibs Wrote:
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> Biltong is fantastic but Droewors is better.


Dibs, what is Droewors?

Ah, Tari, fireworks on the Gulf Coast sounds wonderful!
Have you had any snow from this storm that rampaged Colorado & New Mexico?

Not that I know of. We got a few flakes of snow today, but that was it. Perhaps it's heading this way. However, Oklahoma was hit by its first ever blizzard earlier this year. I'm so glad I was in Texas at the time.

In Iowa tonight, they will be welcoming in the year 2002...LOL

Given that I must have been one of the first members of the forum to experience 2007, I celebrated by going to bed (alone) and doing sudoku.

Something tells me that I am becoming old before my time.

Locals yobs with (probably) illegal fireworks all around, annoying local dogs into barking hysterically, while I was trying to sleep.

Annie, you're welcome to come over here to watch football & eat cookies...

I think the rednecks here are firing shotguns. Either that or there's a parade of backfiring Ford Festivas doing laps of my block.

I'll be reading, probably. I did have a little celebratory bowl of ice cream though.

ZB: How can you tell if that's meat you're eating through all the spices?
Can I try? :)