I rejected the superstions of my family so hard that I can barely remember any now, and it seems like my family has too.
I do from time to time hold my breath when passing a graveyard, but not for the original reason, but rather just because it’s a weird challenge. But I also hold my breath when characters in TV and movie do it, just to see how realistic it is.
I also participate in other people’s…traditions I guess? Having quite a few Jewish friends, I am occasionally called upon to purchase all of their bread and beer for a nominal fee during Passover. This and a whole bunch of other things they do which to an outsider such as me seems like technical loopholes, greatly amuse me, but I am honored to be included nonetheless.
Now that I understand them at a deeper level though, I’m both glad that I have a strong immunity to the bad ones, and a little sad that I don’t remember the good ones.
Also, I do sometimes avoid stepping on cracks, but this is mostly due to some OCD I have about my legs beng less symmetrical than I am comfortable with.
Now I want to know who did it first. The Catholic celebration comes from Mexicans asking that he be made their King “now that we don’t have one any more”.
My Great Uncle tried to get me to do that when I was little! But just ‘rabbit’ once, and he did say some months (but he couldn’t remember which) it was supposed to be ‘white rabbit’ instead.
Most Americans are familiar with the concept of spring cleaning, but the Japanese custom, called osoji, is to clean the house thoroughly in the days before the new year begins. Wife and I do this, although according to this article, we’re doing it wrong and should be cleaning in mid-December. Whatever.
We loosely follow the Revised Common Lectionary. We’re not quite as hardcore about it as Episcopalians and Lutherans and allow individual congregations a great deal of freedom in how they celebrate the liturgical year, but our main calendar is the RCL. It was created after Vatican II and based on the calendar that came out from Vatican II, so any feasts prior to Vatican II made our lectionary. For us, there’s not much in the way of celebration. It’s a special liturgy and we focus on the Sovereignty of God and our place in His Kingdom. I think our sermon this Sunday was about the dangers of getting attached to earthly labels and political parties to the point that we exclude others since our loyalty is to Christ’s Kingdom as a whole and not temporal policies. It’s the last Sunday of the liturgical year, so it almost just feels like an Advent preview.
LOL. Forgot about this. We used to do this on December 31st. Never paid attention to it, until someone told me you always sweep everything inward (away from the door) and never to throw your sweepings out the door because it’s throwing away the good luck. :eek: Always seemed to me you’d want to sweep the bad luck out the door!
Yeah, especially in Hawaii, Japanese traditions/superstitions are all over the place. Seems every religious sector has their their own variations. Plus a lot of things are mixed up with other cultures/nationalities. SIGH
My martial art has one “sword ritual” called Shiho Barai, which is “sweeping out four corners”. The idea is to sweep out all the demons in the room. It’s traditionally done on the first practice of the new year, or in the first practice in a new dojo.
Family wise, every Christmas we used to get an orange in our stocking. This wasn’t so much a “superstition” as it was just a tradition, because when my mom was growing up in Newfoundland, that was literally the only time they got fresh fruit in the winter, since it all had to be brought in by boat, and Newfoundland was too poor to be able to afford that all winter.
