31st Dec 2011 Summing Up The Year Briefly ...

In the resume of the year, there have been events that have changed the course of the world, but not the memory of the smile of your beloved when the two of you met for the first time, the gingerly attempt of the first step your baby took, the good-bye you whispered watching the person you love walked away never to return ... We tend to hold on to intimate moments, not so much world shattering events, especially now in the days of anchor from which we launch ourselves on the onward journey of life, without being sure whether the water is too shallow or too deep & rocky for the boat to float on in safety. The only thing we know is that we must go on.

When much younger, like most, I made new year resolutions. Meticulously wrote down all the things I must do and the ones I must abandon. I can't recall one single year I had managed to carried out all the do's and don'ts, and the list, year after year, seemed to jeer at me so I didn't even bother to ever check back any more. 

I have learned that the most important thing is not making future plans as none of us can be sure of the future. It's the present that really matters. If we can achieve to live each day we can be content with, the future will be too, because the future, our own, is the accumulation of seconds, minutes and days in which we have or have not wasted, but lived the best we could.

It's almost a relief that I don't have a concrete plan. Who knows, opportunity might knock at my door later on today or tomorrow. If not, maybe it will the day after. One thing I am sure, I will be ready for it.

I am going out now to enjoy the evening. I will toast for your good health and wonderful life. See you all in 2012. 

Tags: summingup, 2011

Prev: 31st Welcoming 2012, Remembering 2008 ...

31st Dec 2011 Welcoming 2012, Remembering 2008 ...

This Blog was first posted on New Year's Eve, 2008, not long after I joined Multiply. I have a couple of new friends now who know little of New Year traditions and customs in Spain, so I thought: Why not, I will re-post this one for them. The traditions & customs have not changed, and people are still doing practically exactly the same things as all the years past, and most likely all the years to come.

Happy 2012 to you all, have lots of fun and be sure to keep safe.

 

*** The 12 Grapes of New Year (31st Dec 2008) *** 

 

Apart from a very few countries whose New Year's Day falls on different dates, to the majority it's right now that we are celebrating the New Year 2009. Well strictly speaking not until tomorrow, but we all with no exception start the celebration now on the Eve. The special meal for tonight has been planned well in advance, booked in restaurants, hotels or nearly ready for the oven at home. Champagne is being chilled, the best crockery, cutlery, Champagne and wine glasses are probably on the bright red table cloth already, with the magnificent floral centrepiece completing the table setting for the most important feast of the year. Oh, there are 12 fresh grapes too with a pretty ribbon round the stalk by each individual setting.

In Spain, the most significant ritual, apart from the countdown of the minutes and seconds at midnight, would be the eating of the 12 grapes that each diner is provided, be the meal served in a restaurant or at home, laid in front of you at your table place, together with the little bag of party delights, in which would be all sorts of merry making little bits and pieces, knick knacks, a whistle to make noise to save you from having to shout at the top of your lungs to show your enthusiasm in welcoming in the new year, and, of course, the party blower. After the meal, and before you can play with all that, you must first of all eat up your 12 grapes, each in tune to the striking of the last 12 seconds of the clock. If you complete it, eating the last grape at the last strike of the clock, you are supposed to have a fabulously lucky new year ahead.

 

That custom is responsible for all those years of bad luck I had, as I had never once been able to eat 12 grapes in 12 seconds!!! So that had stopped being fun for me, more like a torture, ever since my first failure to do so, and totally helpless and useless to try in the following yeas; it's just physically impossible. The other unwritten but customary requirements are much easier, and fun to observe, like wearing red panties - still not sure whether men are supposed to or not!! I was told they don't!

Dinner over, grapes swallowed whole seeds and all (how else can they do it?), comes now the dancing. On this night everybody but everybody is a great dancer, great in the sense of willingness and eagerness. Fortified no doubt by the over the limit consumption of alcohol. There are huge municipal sponsored and organised halls, and huge marquees, in every town and even the smallest villages, specially erected for this purpose. Nobody is supposed to leave till 5 or 6 in the New Year morning. After you are served an extra thick, extra hot, and extra sticky chocolate in a heavy cup; so thick it should coat the 'churros' - sort of deep fried crispy pastry in a twisted stick shape, with which you dip or dunk into the hot chocolate. That was always too sweet for me, but the ritual must be completed, especially by a foreigner like me. I ate it and was accepted almost as one who had passed the initiation with flying colours, to become a local.

 

In the last few years, as much as possible, I prefer not to go to these Do's. There are far too many crazy rules and rituals, far too much loud music, loud conversation, not to say drunken companions and the thick & sticky hot chocolate. But I must confess I miss the fun, in all it's other aspects.

Good health, peace and prosperity to you all, my dear friends. *** 

 

Tags: newyeareve

Prev: 31st Dec 2008 My New Year Resolution

Tags: 2008, 2012

Prev: 30th Dec 2011 Pyjama Party