This year, I had a particularly delightful New Year's filled with all sorts of lucky traditions I've learned from my friends and family around the world. Some of my favorite traditions hail from Austria (where my sister has lived for the past nine years. It was in Austria In 1691 that Pope Innocent XII declared January 1 to be New Year's Day. The Austrians call New Year's Eve Sylvesterabend (or just “Sylvester”) which is the Eve of Saint Sylvester.

My favorite part of Silvester is the exchange of good luck symbols called Glücksbringer. Glücksbringer's are typically chocolate and marzipan candies shaped (yum!) like pigs, gold coins, chimney sweeps, four-leaf clovers, and horseshoes. My other favorite tradition is a bit dangerous as it involves melting lead (only in Austria!). The common game is to melt down lead figures (typically shaped as the lucky pigs) over a candle and then you pour the melted lead into cold water and the shape it takes predicts your future. My future was a long pour (indicating change) with a mossy edge (indicating money). Sounds good to me!

Then on New Year's Day, we continued our lucky celebration with a traditional Southern Breakfast (well, with a San Francisco styling). We cooked up a delightful brunch of black eye'd peas (for luck), collard greens (for money), corn bread, and eggs with fresh caught dungeness crab (the SF-spin). What's even better is the peas and greens were cooked up with ham hocks, bringing in the lucky pig from Austria. 

I think this is going to be a great year (at least I've done all I can to make sure it is). 

Cheers and Happy New Year from all the SmartsCo crew!

Julie