In my family there have always been rituals for the end of the year and some of them have been very strange.
Cousin Clara, for example, had the custom of making letters of wishes and resolutions for the new cycle that was beginning. Many people did that, but no one did it in the special way she did.
A week before the end of the year, the cousin would set out to buy the materials she needed to make her elaborate letters. She always went to the same stationery store downtown. There she would order several sheets of onion paper, a very nice paper; she would also buy a bottle of India ink and a fountain pen.
The cousin would wait for midnight to arrive to start writing. With a nice calligraphy she would fill the sheet of onion paper. Sometimes it took her until dawn because it was very easy for the fountain pen to spill some of the ink, and if that happened, the cousin would start over again. Those letters were not supposed to have any crossings out.
On New Year's Day, a little before midnight, the cousin would look for the previous year's letter, read it silently and then burn it in a candle. She would take the new letter and hide it in a place where she was sure no one could find it. The contents of those letters were a secret that the cousin never confided to anyone.
Aunt Patricia also had a very particular ritual that was known to everyone. She was a lover of travel. In her hands she always had a copy of National Geographic magazine, where she read about the wonderful places they would love to go. But Auntie had a panic of airplanes, a fear she could never overcome, so all her travels were limited to places she could get to by road or sea.
Aunt was a great coffee lover, with a very demanding taste, she only drank coffee of one brand. This intransigence created innumerable problems that she knew how to solve, she only visited two or three coffee shops where they served the brand she liked, if she met with someone to talk it had to be in those places.
When she visited the family she would take her coffee ration and her bag of brew. Everyone knew that the aunt was like that and respected her eccentricities.
Every time she traveled she carried several kilos of ground coffee in her suitcase and a thermos with the hot beverage to drink along the way. When he arrived at the hotels and inns he would make arrangements with the owners so that they would let him prepare the coffee in their kitchens.
This habit of hers of drinking only one brand of coffee did not stop even when she was on a fifteen-day cruise in the Caribbean. In all that time the aunt managed to prepare her coffee in the ship's kitchens. She became so familiar with the kitchen staff that at the end of the trip they gave her a special farewell.
On New Year's Day the aunt would take out a small suitcase and begin to prepare it. On one side she had a kilo of coffee beans and many small bags. She would fill those bags with a few beans and tie them with yellow ribbons. Then he would take several pieces of recently purchased clothing and begin to arrange the suitcase.
With the coffee bags he would make a square and in the center he would place all the new clothes he had bought.
A few minutes before midnight on December 31, Aunt Patricia would go out with her suitcase through the neighborhood. As she walked, she would leave the bags and clothes on the sidewalk. People watched her pass by and some who knew her even applauded her, celebrating her witticism.
When she arrived home, her aunt's suitcase was completely empty. She welcomed the New Year with her suitcase in her hand. And after hugging everyone, eating the twelve grapes and toasting with champagne, as was the custom in my country, the aunt would go to the backyard and burn the suitcase in a small bonfire.
This ritual was kept by Aunt Patricia until she was quite old.
Nowadays my sisters-in-law still keep some rituals, they receive the year wearing some yellow garment and make petition letters. But I have never seen anyone else do such strange things as Aunt Patricia did.
Happy New Year friends of @cinnamoncupcoffee
Thank you for your time.
Translated with DeepL.com (free version).
