How well do you know New Year’s traditions?
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Hi dear @_Elsa_ thank you very much for the thread, I found it very interesting, I had to look at the answers as I knew very few 💜 Thank you for tagging me @PrettyBubbles 💜
Dear Elsa blydhen nowydh da 🤗
In Cornwall, the moment between 11.59pm on New Year’s Eve and midnight on New Year’s Day is known as “St Tibb’s Eve” and is supposed to be a hidden day of magical celebration.
“First footing” is a tradition found across the world; often it’s believed that good luck is brought into the house by the first person to enter it in the New Year. The Cornish version of first footing is called “sanding the step”. In this custom, the doorstep is swept to remove “fleas” and marked with a line of sand. Like in first footing, the person who first crosses the sand is said to represent the luck the household will receive in the coming year. Some families give small money tokens, always silver in colour, which are thought to bring good financial fortune for the next year.
St Ives and Looe are known for their large and popular fancy dress New Year’s Eve celebrations. In St Ives this began as the annual Old Cornwall Society guise dance parade, when hundreds of people dressed up in ornate masks and costumes to disguise their features, sometimes even changing their voices so that people couldn’t guess who they were.
In the rural districts of Cornwall, it is thought to be unlucky if a female is first to enter the house on New Year's Morning. To insure the contrary, it was customary, to give boys some small reward for placing sand on the doorsteps and in the passage.
In many places, not many years since, droves of boys would march through towns and villages, collecting their fees for 'sanding your step for good luck'.
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Hi @Racoon7! I did some googling and made a bunch of gnome animations on Christmas and New Year's traditions around the world. I am fascinated with what some countries do. Here in the USA I am not aware of any traditions like "First Footing", or anything. The only thing that happens is the ball dropping in New York. I know that many states have fireworks and I used to love watching it on TV from Philadelphia.
I know that one of the rules here is that we cannot share a link that takes the community members away from here and I hope that the CMs can make an exception for me just this one time. If you want to see the traditions that I found online you can view them here. They are fascinating! I'm now working on unusual traditions around the world and then I'll get to the superstitions and that's where I'll find more USA things like walking under a ladder or a black cat crossing your path.
Thanks for sharing the traditions that you have by you in Cornwall.
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The gnomes are lovely, they have recently taken off in the last few years. One of my Aunt's married a Swede as it seems a thing there.
It is interesting how cultures diverse and how others have a similar tradition.
We also have the black cat and ladder thing here in England.
Being Cornish, we also have our own. There are few of us true blood natives here now in our County.
Most laugh at us! I don't care, because my pride for my love is surmount.
My pride for my small County, with it's own language, flag, 3 tartans, history, traditions and culture will always be in my heart.
This is something that all the incomers will never drive the few last standing away from. We are proud people and I will not be driven out or swayed by the rich and ignorant. I get the true energy on my mother land, they don't. They are destroying so much here at a horrific speed 😪
Quote a saying from a fellow Cornish person said - " We where Ok till the white man came" meaning the above.
I will die with the honour of being from my mother land and will protect 💜
