New Year superstitions – will your luck be good or bad this year?
January 2nd, 2013
Happy (slightly belated) New Year, appliance fans!
We hope that your New Year’s Eve parties were fun, that you’ve managed to successfully detox following New Year’s Day, and that your actions over the holiday will bring you lots of good luck for the rest of 2013.
Don’t know what we mean by that last part? Well, there’s a whole host of old-timey superstitions and the like associated New Year’s, where what you do on that fateful night has long-lasting ramifications over the year to come.
Here’s our guide to making your own luck this year, regardless of whether you did the “right” or “wrong” thing over the New Year’s holiday:
Good luck = Wearing new clothes
Wearing new clothes over New Year’s is said to make sure you receive plenty more new garments over the coming year, with red being considered an especially lucky colour, associated with happiness and a bright future. Now you can TOTALLY justify having bought that whole new outfit for the party…
The Woman In Red from The Matrix wasn’t very lucky for Keanu Reeves…
To make sure that your good luck continues, it would be sensible to take good care of the clothes in question over the coming year, as well as any extra clothes you may come to own. Check that your washer and dryer are set up correctly to handle new clothing with care, so that it stays in good condition with no fading of its colours.
Bad luck = Taking out the garbage
Superstition tells us that if anything precious (money, jewellery etc.) is removed from the home over the period of New Year’s celebration, the household’s good luck goes with it.
A more extreme variation of this belief would have you believe that taking out the garbage, dusting or even washing one’s hair will have dire consequences.
Since a fair few of us may have spent New Year’s Day cleaning up after our revels the night before, this could leave us all in a bit of trouble…
Perhaps bad luck is best countered in the same way it was initially acquired. To help manage your household waste more efficiently, a waste disposal unit for the kitchen sink can reduce any food scraps down to a fine paste that can be conveniently flushed away down the drain.
And as for dust, a high-quality bagless vacuum cleaner should be able to help manage that. A portable handheld one can tackle dust in inconvenient places, and a powerful one with a powered brush head can extract even the dust embedded in carpets (and I would not be surprised at all if bad luck got tangled up in there too).
Good luck = Making some noise
Aside from being spectacular, one of the reasons we have fireworks at midnight on New Year’s Eve is that it was once believed that loud noises can scare away evil spirits.
KABOOM! TAKE THAT, SPOOKS!
If that’s true, better not take any chances – grab a high-powered audio system and play music at deafening volumes all year round to keep the ghoulies out.
Bad luck = Washing dishes or clothes
This is meant to be one of the big no-nos of New Year’s. Supposedly, washing dishes or doing laundry over New Year’s can “wash away” the luck from your household, and result in the sickness or even untimely death of one of its residents!
Personally, I feel that you would be more likely to suffer sickness or death from NOT doing the washing – hygiene is very important when it comes to preventing the spread of germs, after all.
I’d also say that whoever draws the short straw to clean up this mess has bad enough luck already.
Fortunately, the same appliances that may have brought about this bad luck can also be used to counteract it. A dishwasher or washing machine with a germ-killing antibacterial cycle is perfect for stopping disease and illness in its tracks, keeping everyone in your household happy and healthy.
Good luck = Keeping the fridge full
They say that keeping a full fridge, cupboard or wallet at New Year’s translates into a Year Of Plenty to come for the household.
Keeping it full of chocolate can only improve matters, right?
Whether you filled your fridge for New Years or not, this is one case where you can definitely make your own luck. By using a fridge with adjustable shelves, you can rearrange the layout of its interior to fit the maximum amount of food and drink within, so your home will remain bountiful for longer.
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