From flickr.com contributor "courtneyplatt"
What’s done in ’08 is DONE!
The Lord has granted you with another year. Now how are we gonna raise this baby?
In the meantime, do you need a refresher course on how we kick this thang off?
While New Year’s Day falls within the contemporary celebration of Kwaanza, it is also referred to as Emancipation Day or Jubilee Day. On New Year’s Day in 1863, the Emancipation Proclamation announcing the abolition of slavery, was read in Boston. Today, “watch services” are still held in many African-American churches in observance of that day. Among the foods associated with the New Year, some African customs have become traditional like the serving of ham hocks, black-eyed peas, collard greens and macaroni and cheese. Benné wafers (sesame and cheese “coins”), which represent money, are also popular as symbols of future prosperity. (from meatime.org)
Some other traditions~
- Watch night service
- First footing – My mom told me how as a little girl my great uncle would be the first to knock on their door right after the stroke of 12am. In some parts of the south, it was believed that a family would have good fortune if the first one to cross the threshold was a man.
-Family members on both sides of our families would fire off their guns into the sky at the stroke of midnight
I will be back to blogging on 1/1/09.
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