New Year's (traditions)

A few years ago, after tedious discussions about my aversion for pork and sauerkraut--but a yearning for tradition and good luck tokens, we found a few of our own. 

Interestingly, there are about a million out there--some bizarre, mostly all cultural--but we kind of picked and chose from what we liked and felt was reasonable.

The first year, we went a little overboard--we started the New Year's day family photo--which, conveniently we had one from our trip to Pebble Beach to support, the "food that is ring shaped" where we made doughnuts, cookies, and did we try onion rings?  I don't think so, but it was on there--I know we did a black-eyed pea casserole one year (traditional in the South) but I get my years mixed up now--

The big keeper was our pork fried rice though. We had all the family over and made a TREMENDOUS batch of Guy Fieri's pork fried rice and it was amazing!  I'm pretty sure the lot of us ran through 12+ cups of rice, giant bowl of veggies, and 2-4 lbs of pork...

The pork is good for luck in just about every culture we found, as is rice for health.  Rings (ring shaped food) I think is for unending fulfillment or something like that--we even managed to get cabbage in there (in the rice) and I know that is favored in several countries too.

This year, all we did was the pork fried rice and photo--taken late, just before bedtime after a long day of playing, organization, and box shuffling in the basement, but hey, it's tradition.  We said "we'll always remember what we were doing that New Year's day 2011, exhausted by the toddler, pregnant, new house, and list of projects that seems to never end.

There are lots more we want to explore--some sound more like a superstition than anything--from not wearing shoes all day, to the doors in the house you use, and on and on.

Here's to tradition and Happy New Year!