Hello! This is a short message to wish you all a heartfelt Happy New Year, as we begin again with hope, and wishes for joy and love. A little story for the New Year…..
For background, my parents were both born in Austria, and technically our ethnicity is from Gottschee, a place that is currently geographically located in Slovenia, but wasn’t Slovenia then (it is a long, amazing immigrant/refugee story). Anyways, we have always had a tradition of eating pork on New Year’s Day.
I once asked , “Why pork?”.
My parents simply told me, “It is good luck!”. (P.S. They really like pork, so there is a bias here.)
Well, that was not enough for this gal, so I did a little research. This is what I found….
A pig digs forward when s/he is looking for food, as compared to the chicken, who digs backward for food, or the cow, who does not move when eating. Because the pig pushes forward, this is considered a sign of progress and luck in the new year.
So, in the spirit of this tradition, I wish you all a year of progress. I am glad we are in this together, as we dig forward, in creating awareness of the gift of elders, and connecting us to each other as we all GROW older.
Happy New Year, Sonya!
Even though it’s not an Italian tradition, I’ve adopted the pork thing for New Year’s, specifically pork ribs and sauerkraut. That’s probably more German in tradition, but close. I always heard it’s pork that brings a “fat” year (as in prosperity), whereas chicken means one has to “scratch out a living.” Anyway, traditions are fun, and it helps to know their original meaning.
Btw, an Italian New Years tradition is for women to wear a new pair of red panties! Sounds like an Italian thing, right? I know this because my niece, who lives in Rome, gave us all red panties one Christmas and made us wear them on New Year’s. Fun times!
Peace and blessings for 2018! Hope to see you!
Laura
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Ha! Happy New Year! That sounds like a more interesting tradition, for sure 🙂
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Loved your article!!! You should have come over for New Years Day – guess what we were having……….your right, pork!!!! Did you make pork??
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