There were probably a lot of things that needed to be done on New Years Day. Hopefully, there wasn’t a lot of cleaning involved.
There are a lot of superstitions involved with the coming of a New Year. I’ll admit, I did not know many of them.
You are not supposed to do laundry on the first day of the year. There area couple versions of this. One says you will wash away all the luck for the coming year. Another says you can wash away a family member. Either way, it’s not worth taking the chance.
You are also not supposed to sweep on the first day of the year. Again, this involves luck. You are supposedly sweeping away all good fortune for the coming year.
You are also supposed to have food in your pantry to greet the New Year, which makes sense, but that food should not include chicken or lobsters. Chicken and lobsters are known to walk backwards, and you want to greet the New Year moving forward, so the food in your refrigerator should be food that moves forward.
There are quite a few of what might be called “Old Wives Tales” associated with the New Year. Sometimes those old wives knew things. They at least knew enough not to spend the first day of the year sweeping and doing laundry.
Oh… and there’s a very good reason for making noise at midnight New Years Eve. You are scaring away the ghosts of the past year. Hope you scared ’em good.
