Page 4 December 28, 2017 TORRANCE TRIBUNE TerriAnn in Torrance Happy New Year, Torrance! It’s the Time for New Beginnings By TerriAnn Ferren As Christmas 2017 comes and goes we turn our focus to the New Year. There are many traditions for New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day that people have kept throughout the years. For me, New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day mean so very much--from cherished traditions to the possibilities for the future. How will we usher in 2018 and all it will bring for our lives? What do you do New Year’s Eve? And what makes an activity or celebration a tradition? How often must a celebration occur to become a tradition? Do you watch East Coast tape-delay New Year’s Eve celebrations on West Coast time? Or do you, as many people have told me, celebrate at nine o’clock our time, midnight East Coast time--and simply call it a night? Somehow, that just doesn’t seem right to me. This year I asked my parents, Tom and Teddy Lancaster, if they remembered anything from when they were growing up about New Year’s Eve and they first just looked at each other. Then my mom said, “I think we are just going to be home. I do eat my 12 grapes.” My family’s tradition comes from Spain and consists of eating 12 grapes--one grape for every stroke of the clock at midnight for good luck in the New Year. My mom would give everyone a small bunch of grapes well before midnight so when the clock began to strike, everyone was ready with their grapes. From experience, let me suggest one tip if you decide to introduce this tradition into your family or circle of friends. Purchase small grapes. Large grapes really end up being a mouthful and are very difficult to finish in a minute! Actually, it is fun to eat 12 grapes in a minute. I highly recommend you start this tradition because children can join in too. I asked my mom how she ate her grapes and my dad chimed in and said, “One at a time.” Very funny. “At the stroke of midnight as the clock chimes, we eat one grape at a time and hope we get them all down before the last stroke of midnight.” I asked my daddy if he remembered doing anything special New Year’s Eve when he was growing up and he said, “No. I was always out celebrating with my buddies.” When I asked him what he was doing, he wouldn’t tell me. My mom said when she was a teenager she and her best friend (my aunt) JoAnn would go to the movies and celebrate that way. “Actually when I started dating you [my mom] is when I started remembering. That is when my life began,” said my daddy. Yes, he actually said that. Then my mom told me, “The year before we got married, we went to the Palladium and we danced and everybody was there. I remembered we brought in the New Year and it was very exciting because I knew I was getting married in the New Year.” Sweet memories. Joycie Sharman hails from Indiana, Pennsylvania and told me she will again make, as she has every year, pork and sauerkraut on New Year’s Day, “We celebrate the Pennsylvania Dutch tradition of having pork and sauerkraut on New Year’s Day for good luck not because we are Dutch, but because everyone in Pennsylvania seems to follow the tradition.” My friend Carolyn Chun told me, “On New Year’s Eve, my family eats ‘good luck noodles.’ That pretty much consisted of soba, a buckwheat noodle with a soy sauce/chicken base soup with all the trimmings of green onion, kamaboko, sliced scrambled egg and shredded chicken. According to my mom, this was supposed to give us good luck and prosperity, and I think health too, all year long. My mom would make it and we go over and eat it for dinner. Yum.” Carolyn went on to explain that on New Year’s morning, they would make Ozoni (mochi soup), a rice paddy with some kind of sauce, either soy sauce, chicken soup, or plain. The mochi could be steamed, fried or cooked in a soup. It sounds to me like they are eating and cooking all through New Year’s Eve and Day. Meticulous cleaning and then hanging tangerines or oranges are also part of the custom that brings good luck. I asked 11-year-old Madison Jane what she likes to do on New Year’s Eve and received the obvious answer, “I like to stay up late and drink sparkling apple cider.” Actually, that models what my sister Linda and I would do. Staying up late was always a treat and being up near midnight made us feel grown up somehow. When I was a teenager, we would celebrate with my parents at their friends’ Bill and Charlotte Johnson’s house in Torrance for their New Year’s Eve block party. I can remember Mr. Johnson always told jokes and kept everyone laughing with his sharp wit, and Mrs. Johnson spent time in the kitchen visiting, cooking and laughing with the other women. Their home, always still decorated for Christmas, was filled with Santa Claus decorations, mangers, trains, stockings, lights, candles, holiday tablecloths, miniature villages, Christmas trees and everything else you can imagine. It truly was like a Christmas fairyland! Nina Melazzo-Siems, who moved to New York from Torrance told me, “Bobby [her husband] and I have never gone to Times Square for New Year’s Eve, and quite frankly would never even consider it! It is packed with people and that is not my scene. For many years now, we have spent New Year’s Eve with very dear friends literally in our pajamas! They used to live right upstairs from us in the same building and we would take the elevator up in our robes and slippers! We would try and outdo each other every year with the wackiest PJs. It was great fun. We do usually have champagne and if we’re feeling flush, a little caviar too!” Now, New Year’s Eve is quite different for my sister Linda than when we were small. She told me, “I like to go out on New Year’s Eve, whether it is to dance or party. And if I am home, I get out pots and pans and ‘ring it in.’” Actually, I can’t imagine her doing that, but then we don’t live that near each other, so I can’t check it out. Linda’s son and my nephew David Norton, an attorney, said, “I am trying to remember what I have done recently. Nothing crazy really, but I don’t have a ritual--maybe I should. Up until recently, I have been home from school. I haven’t thought about it this year at all. I am going to have to figure something out.” One of the most interesting New Year’s Happy New Year 2018! stories comes from International singing star Francie, who is originally from Brazil. Because it is summer and very hot in Brazil during New Year’s, everyone wears white. Francie explained, “We don’t have snow. I didn’t see snow until I came here to California. We would decorate our Christmas trees with cotton balls to simulate snow.” She went on to share, “Just before midnight, many people---including my family and friends- -go down to the beach and while holding hands, jump eight waves…making wishes on each wave for the New Year, all dressed in white. In fact, even our underwear is white!” (I am not sure, but I think that is too much information). What a beautiful sight that must be on the beach with everyone jumping waves! After the wave-jumping, they crack open the champagne and toast the New Year. Sign me up. The oddest tradition of all came from Torrance residents John and Martha. Martha told me they really don’t have any old traditions, but in the past have been doing something called “pumpkin chuckin” where at midnight they throw un-carved pumpkins left over from Halloween and fall decorating over the hill. Martha did add, “I always said a prayer at midnight thanking God for my family and friends and pray they will be healthy and happy in the New Year.” If I were Martha, I would have prayed that I don’t tell you where they actually did that in Torrance! But they haven’t chucked pumpkins in several years now because they go camping over New Year’s. “It was fun doing it and checking in the morning to see how far they [the pumpkins] went down the hill. And then another New Year’s Eve, John dressed up as the New Year’s baby complete with diaper, sash across his chest with the New Year written on it, with a cigar. Our kids and their friends were in high school at the time. We scared them for life with that one. It was pretty funny,” said Martha. With all the many old and new traditions we have for the New Year, the toasting, the kissing, the parade watching, the parties and dinners with friends, we share one thing in common: we reflect back on the year past and forward to the year ahead with hope, wishes for health, love and joy. The year 2017 was filled with memories for each and every one of us, and 2018 year will be a year filled with many more. “The first day of the year is special, a fresh beginning for sure. Possibilities lay before us- -the unknown success so pure. Being thankful for the year that’s past--and trusting the one ahead--filled with blessings and opportunities to serve anew.” Try something new this New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day. Begin a tradition with your family and friends as you usher in the New Year, a year of new beginnings and possibilities for us all. 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