Scenes from New Year's Day

 

Started off New Year's Day with a festive pomegranate fruit salad, which I think will also bring luck in the new year.

I did some tarot readings with Mom, and this was my forecast for 2025.

David made pink-eyed peas that came all the way from Hillsville, and I made the roasted cabbage pictured here.

I'm hoping to do a lot more of this in 2025.

Ominous New Year

 There is a lot to be discouraged about in 2025, so on New Year's Eve I wanted to try for all the luck we could. I made this lemon pig to bring in good luck and wealth.

And I poured myself a glittering cocktail of sparkling tea, edible gold glitter, candied lemon peel, and pomegranate seeds.

Cocktail Club got together for New Year's Eve drinks, which has been our tradition for a few years now.

Then I lit the bayberry candle that Mom had given me. It's supposed to burn from one year to the next, all the way down to the socket, and if it successfully burns down you will have good fortune in the new year.

Malinda and I settled down to watch a New Year's movie (Bachelor Mother, with Ginger Rogers and David Niven). The bayberry candle, which you can see here behind Malinda's head, burned down very nicely for two hours, and then it seemed to explode. Wax guttered everywhere, spilling down the TV stand, and the candle died. But we were in for two pieces of luck already: one, that the wax was easy to clean up; and two, that I had another bayberry candle from Mom to light before midnight.

I went to bed with the second bayberry candle burning away in the bathroom sink.

In the morning, I found it like this: completely burned down, with a little liquid wax in the bottom of the candle holder. It burned straight down; that wax on the side is from the first candle. I took it out of the sink and went about my morning.

But when I stepped back into the bathroom, I saw a weird light. It was the candle. It had relit itself and come to life again! How is that even possible?!! This time the candle burned down to nothing, not even a drop of wax left in the candlestick. I'm going to assume this is a good omen. Or maybe it just means that we can't possibly predict what's about to happen in 2025.