Way back in December of 2006, my mother-in-law brought a Spanish exchange student to our house for Christmas break. We had a wonderful time introducing her to an American Christmas, and in turn we learned about her most important New Year’s tradition.
On New Year’s Eve she insisted that we buy grapes, and was astonished to see piles of them left in the grocery store when we went to buy them that night. She told us that back home she had to buy her grapes early because all of the markets sold out long before dark on the 31st.
Ten minutes before midnight we all sat at the dining room table with a bowl of twelve grapes each. We were instructed to eat the grapes one at a time and, while we chewed each juicy morsel, we must make a wish. The bowl, and the wishes, had to be done by the stroke of midnight or all would be lost.
I love this custom. Ever since that night I have adopted this as my favorite New Year’s Eve tradition. I have not failed in the years since to eat my grapes and make my wishes before midnight, and I would say that things have been going pretty well.
What’s your favorite New Year’s tradition?
Neat. I dont think that I’d ever heard this story before. Fun tradition.
It’s a lot of fun, and it works! At least it did that first year. Baby Bates was a week shy of being a 2007 baby. :)
That sounds like something my family would love to do! It’s odd but my family has traditional and quirks galore for everything but New Years. Hmmm. Going to have to fix that. Think I’m going to challenge them on that tonight! Stay tuned.
Meh! Typo– that should read my family has *traditions* and quirks galore . . .
:D That’s why it takes a year to write a book and five years to edit one! I make typos ALL the time- no worries.
I can’t wait to hear what you come up with D.D.! I hope you have a wonderful New Year’s Eve and may this year be full of amazing surprises for you!
Traditions are so awesome :) The best part is that you never want to break them. We like to read our previous year’s resolutions and write out new ones. It’s always funny to go back one year in time in mindset. This year my reaction was: wow, my goals were puny. Time to bring out the big guns! Lol. Yours is a lovely tradition, Nicole, keep it going :)
What a great tradition Margaret! I love that you write your resolutions down and save them. That speaks of a definite commitment. I’d say that so far this year you’ve accomplished some pretty big goals already! I hope that 2013 is an amazing year for you.