Happy 2011

We rang in the new year English style. At 6 p.m. Central Time it was midnight in England so we did some research and found some cool British new year traditions we could celebrate. For example, we observed the tradition of "First Footing" by having "a dark-haired, handsome young man" (my son) be the first person in the door on new year's day (or just after 6 p.m. at our house) bearing coal (a stick), bread and salt. The items are supposed to bring warmth, food and money to those at the home.

Then, my nieces dropped egg whites into a glass of water and looked into the mixture to find the first letter of the man they would marry. Amazingly, the egg whites do form some interesting letter-looking shapes in water! So there's an "M" in one nieces' future and an "S" in the other's. And of course we had to have a little puzzle for the kids to try to match the funny Britishism to the picture, like hooter for nose, telly for television and biscuit for cookie. Good times!

We ate some awesome English foods, too. No bangers and mash, but we did have beer cheese soup with English ale. Yum! And we had a very nice, roaring fire (check out the great vintage log-getter I scored at a thrift store). It was very relaxing, right up until my toddler woke up at 11 p.m. and SCREAMED his head of like a maniac because he didn't want to go back to bed. And then there was the 2 a.m. wakeup call at my bedroom door from my sister, who was awoken in the basement bedroom to the sound of water pouring down from the kitchen -- caused by an overflowing dishwasher (or more likely all the leeks I had shoved down the garbage disposal earlier). Ugh. So the new year started a little rough, but I'm hoping it'll be looking up!

Did you rock in the new year? Did you make any resolutions?