First Foot

I like all these customs that involve a little bit of superstition. I wouldn't think about not having Hoppin' John and collard greens on New Year's Day. The collards are really smelly though and require an airing out of the house after they are cooked. Otherwise, it smells like a barnyard or something worse.

I also like the old traditions like First Footing. In British folk lore, the first foot is the first person to cross the threshold of a home on New Year's Day and is a bringer of good fortune for the coming year.

Although it is acceptable in many places for the first-footer to be a resident of the house, they must not be in the house at the stroke of midnight in order to first-foot (thus going out of the house after midnight and then coming back in to the same house is not considered to be first-footing). The first-foot is traditionally a tall, dark-haired male; a female or fair-haired male are in some places regarded as unlucky.

The first-foot usually brings several gifts, including perhaps a coin, bread, salt, coal, or a drink which respectively represent financial prosperity, food, flavor, warmth, and good cheer. Did you have a first footer at your house?

I think that we messed this up on New Year's Day as I left the house and came back in after midnight. Maybe that's why yesterday, the bad luck started with the internet going out at home. I decided to install a new more powerful router and in the process discovered that the phone jacks weren't active in area where I wanted to install it. So I missed everyone's blogs yesterday and am just now catching up.

All else is going well. And after a few electronic tweaks, the internet is up and going.

Superstitions aside, I'm ever mindful of my powerlessness over people, places and things. Looking forward to this second day of 2009 and all that it has to bring.