Life in the UK test 2009

We are supposed to eat pork and sauerkraut on News Years at home and place a new coin on an outside windowsill to bring money into the house.

Who's "we"? Sauerkraut doesn't sound like a British tradition!

Who's "we"? Sauerkraut doesn't sound like a British tradition!

I can guess!

Home as in Pennsylvania.  Sorry, every place is home, even my in-laws in Suffolk and I never lived there. 

Home as in Pennsylvania.  Sorry, every place is home, even my in-laws in Suffolk and I never lived there. 

I thought Penn. was Welsh country???

I don't think you can generalise on most American states.

Wisconsin, I could imagine with the sauerkraut tradition, but there are loads of people of Cornish descent living there too - and probably a few Welsh!

You've never heard of the Amish?

Mostly German in the East.  There are some Welsh areas in the coal mining regions, although they were displaced by East Europeans, Polish and the like, who were cheaper.

I thought Penn. was Welsh country???

There is a huge Pennsylvania Dutch (German) population.  PA is an enormous state.  Where I'm from everyone is English/Scottish descent but 40 miles away is Scranton with a very large Italian and Irish population.  Coal mines in the east and steel work in the west attracted loads of immigants in the early 20th century but the rest of the state was settled long before that.

We are supposed to eat pork and sauerkraut on News Years at home and place a new coin on an outside windowsill to bring money into the house.

Us too!! I have to say, I don't think DH will mind terribly if I don't continue the tradition across the pond, as this New Year's Eve spent with my parents was marked by the very pungent aroma of sauerkraut slow-cooking in the crockpot...he didn't like it very much. 

the smell of cooking sauerkraut makes me want to boak.

I don't actually like it either, but like eating two brussel spouts on Christmas, I do it for the sake of tradition.  I'm such a trooper, where is my OBE?

I don't much care for it anymore either, but the rest of my family loves it.

Though the first person to cross the threshold should be a dark haired man carrying a lump of coal.

Oh, it all makes sense now!  My FiL came around about half twelve on Thursday to have a sit with us and he brought a stone, saying it was "close enough."  Nobody explained it to me and I was far too tired to ask!

The idea of Christmas decorations being taken down by twelfth night to avoid bad luck is certainly something I've always known here.  Like Contrex, however, I've always looked upon the traditions of the first person across the threshold in the new year carrying a piece of coal etc. as being a Scottish thing.  It's not something which was part of my New Year folklore growing up in southern England.   Never heard of the going out the back door and then back in the front.

I was under the impression that in Scotland the first-footer is entitled to a dram provided by the household he or she is visiting, but some variant descriptions have him or her bringing whisky with them.

The idea of Christmas decorations being taken down by twelfth night to avoid bad luck is certainly something I've always known here. 

In my family it's not "by Twelfth Night," but "on Twelfth Night." If you do it before then, it's just as bad.

I've never heard of the going out the back and in the front either. In fact, to us you must always (at New Year and every other day of the year) leave a house by the same door you entered it.