Out with the Old and In with the New

So, another new year is knocking at the door.  The older I get, the faster the years go screaming by, and I get farther and farther behind.  Much like all the other occasions in my life, my family has grown accustomed to celebrating them with traditions and foods.  We traditionally eat certain foods every New Year's Eve and New Year's Day.  I can't say that we have truly prospered or had better luck for eating them, but we can't stop doing it now.

The Chinese believe that fish and seafood bring about fortune and luck.  They represent moving forward.  The German believe eating pork can bring the same, because pigs root moving forward as well.  The Chinese eat noodles to begin a new year because they represent long life.  The Chinese also believe that eating eggs will bring fertility, but I choose to believe it is more about new beginnings because we do not need any fertility around here.  Irish eat cabbage at the start of a new year because it is believed to bring luck and fortune.  Spanish people twelve grapes at midnight New Year's Eve, one grape for each month of the year.  They believe this will bring good luck each month to come.  Mediterraneans consume pomegranates for great abundance, because there are so many pom pellets inside one pomegranate.  Being a good southern girl, I have to eat black eyed peas and cornbread, and some kind of greens.  The black eyed peas are eaten for prosperity, the greens will bring you greenbacks in the coming year, and cornbread is just tasty.

That being said, I have come up with the New Year's menu for this weekend:
Salmon puffs (salmon-cream cheese mixture rolled in puff pastry)
BLT Salad (spinach, bacon, tomatoes, boiled eggs, and croutons)
Pork Loin (garlic and herb)
Black eyed Peas (with ham and bacon)
Cabbage (with bacon)
Parmesan Noodles (wide egg noodles with garlic and Parmesan)
Peppered Deviled Eggs
Red Seedless Grapes
Pomegranate-Blueberry Smoothies
Chocolate Cake (my neighbor's 40th birthday is NYE, and I'm making her a cake)
Carrot Cake Cupcakes (I really like carrot cake, that's all)

I bought sparkling cider for the girls to drink at midnight, as they share their wishes and goals for the upcoming year.  The best part of NYE on the ranchette is getting to shoot fireworks at midnight, and we are not alone with that activity.  Last year, we could hear fireworks for miles, and for a long while after midnight, too.  The girls helped me pick out party hats and noise makers, which I usually begin to regret purchasing by 8:00pm, long before midnight.  A good time is expected for us all.

I wish for you all to have a great new year.  Hopefully the Mayans just got tired of writing out the calendar, and the end of the world is not that soon.  I have so many more celebrations to plans!

Happy New Year!

Winter Break and the Crazies

So, in just a matter of days, the kids will be out of school for a couple of weeks over Christmas.  I go a little Crazy every year deciding what 'little something' I can get the girls' teachers that will be useful or wanted.  It was a lot easier when the girls only had one teacher all day everyday, back in elementary school.  I know the teachers get a lot of things from their students at Christmas, but I hope that the thing I come up with is not the worst gift they receive.

This year, I decided on 'Snowman Soup'.  A bag filled with Hershey Kisses, candy cane-stir stick, a dozen snowman shaped marshmallows, and a packet of hot chocolate mix.  Fairly easy to assemble, and easy for the girls to take and distribute at school.  The hardest part was choosing the font for the print style on the poem.  I hope the paper stuff stays stuck on long enough to get the little gifts passed out.

I need a nice idea for a gift to a bus driver.  The girls' bus driver is retiring at the winter break.  He's been our bus driver for the past year, but he's been driving a bus in Midlothian for decades.  He really loves the kids, and I want to do something special.  I was leaning toward premium coffee and homemade cookies.  If you have a good idea, please let me know!

My next Crazy obstacle is planning what to buy and prepare to eat during the kids time off from school.  I'm not used to having lunch on hand everyday.  I hope by starting to think about it now, I might actually have a plan in place by the time they are out.

Hopefully, I won't be too Crazy before they return to school in January.