Wishing you a Happy New Year that will bring great successes and happiness and hopes!
The belief that carrying a penny in your pocket on New Year’s Eve will bring good luck is indeed an old wives’ tale! However my cockney mum and Liverpudlian aunt kept a couple of English crown, three shilling and several tuppence for just for this purpose, along with some old American pennies. Every new year’s eve they stepped onto our front porch and turned these coins over in their pocket leaving the door open behind them, blowing in the fresh year’s luck with a full throated howl! It was quite a remarkable thing to watch when my sister and I were kids! Dad did not join the howling….but he would pour a glass of Sandeman port while mum mixed some brandy alexanders. The two of us us got small glasses of port too. All of us toasted the brand new year. Dad would set a small bowl and spoon on the table to remember all the past centuries of Moran’s that were before us! I realized in time, they all enjoyed their traditions, both from England and Ireland. This year I’ll be doing the same thing and be hoping all who read this have a healthy beginning for 2024!
