Japanese
New Year
Kinga Shinnen
|
Vintage New Year Card, Father Time |
Fu - Luck
|
Holiday Fun - fun, creative activities and crafts for every holiday, year round. |
New Year Links
Chinese
New Year
Chinese New Year lasts three weeks long with the first
night of celebration - New Year's Eve - held on the
24th day of the 12th lunar month in the Chinese
calendar.
New
Year Printables and Crafts
The Chinese
zodiac defines which animal (12 total) represents
any year. Red, a good fortune color in Asian cultures,
is the predominant color for Chinese New Year decorations
and gifts, often accompanied by gold trims or lettering.
Chinese
New Year is a time of family reunion with many
traditions, including cleaning the home thoroughly
in the month before the celebration (sweeping out the
old, bringing in the new), hanging red spring couplets
upside down on doorways, burning incense, eating special
foods, setting off firecrackers, staying up all night
and presenting gifts of money in red envelopes to children.
New Year
Activities & Crafts
New
Year Resolutions
Looking for some guidance with how to make and stick
to your well-intentioned resolutions for the New Year?
Here are two different articles, each with good advice
for keeping those commitments for the year, and for
the rest of your life.
- At the end of each year, it is traditional to make
a New Year's Resolution. With such "agreements",
we commit ourselves to resolving personal issues,
yet more often than not, fail to keep these commitments.
Try this 10-step method
by Nisandeh Neta - trainer, success coach and healer
- to define your New Year resolutions and remain committed to yourself.
- If you want to travel the fast track toward keeping
your resolutions, try this 1-step
program recommended by Wayne Perkins, clinical
hypnotherapist and author.
New Year Games - Print and Play Games for
New Year Fun
If you want to have good luck in the coming year, you'd better know what to
do on New Year's! Find out who's lucky as players try to match the new year
tradition in each country that's believed to bring good luck for the entire
year.
Start printing as soon as you order these printable unique New Year party games.
New
Year Traditions - Food and Good Luck
Different countries and regions celebrate the New Year with special foods to conjour up good fortune fo the upcoming 12 months. In the United States, the foods vary according to state and local culture.
In the Southern United States, black-eyed peas and
turnip greens make up the traditional New Year meal.
Black-eyed peas are a symbol of good luck for the coming
year - the peas represent copper and the greens represent
dollars.
Some folks say you should eat one pea for every
day of the year, so you'll have good luck for an entire
year (365 days worth of black-eyed peas!). Cook up some Hoppin'
John or Black-eyed Peas with Collard
Greens
There are interesting local variations on this theme
throughout the USA.
For example, in Texas and Alabama, cabbage replaces
turnip greens as the symbolic cash. Wherever the custom
is observed, greens represent money, and the more greens
you eat the more your financial fortune should improve
in the upcoming year. Pennsylvania Germans dine on traditional pork and sauerkraut
on New Year's Day, also for luck and good health in
the coming year.
Coleslaw, anyone? A Happy Healthy New Year to You!
Black-Eyed Peas with Collard
Greens
Ingredients
1 cup dried black-eyed peas
2 tsp canola oil
1 small onion, chopped
1/2 green pepper, chopped
4 oz mushrooms, sliced
2 cloves garlic, minced
12 oz collard greens, cleaned and coarsely chopped
3/4 cup tomato sauce
4 Tbsp molasses
1-1/2 tsp dry mustard
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
2-3 drops hot-pepper sauce
Directions
Soak the black-eyed peas in 2-1/2 Cups water overnight.
Next day, bring the beans and water to a boil over
high heat.
Reduce heat to medium-low, cover and simmer until
tender (45-50 minutes). Transfer the beans and cooking
liquid to a 3-quart non-stick baking dish.
Preheat oven to 350° Fahrenheit.
In a saucepan warm the oil gently over medium heat,
then add onions, green peppers and mushrooms and saute
for 5 minutes. Stir in minced garlic and collard greens.
Cover and cook about 5 minutes stirring occasionally,
or until the collard greens are barely wilted. Remove
from heat and add to black-eyed peas and cooking liquid;
stir to combine.
Add tomato sauce, molasses, mustard, parsley and
hot-pepper sauce and mix welll. Cover baking dish
and cook in the over for 20 minutes.
1-Step Program in Achieving Your New Year's Resolutions
By Wayne F. Perkins,
clinical hypnotherapist
|
Wayne F. Perkins is a clinical hypnotherapist
and the author of How to Hypnotize Yourself Without Losing Your Mind. |
In Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen's original "Chicken Soup for the
Soul," I am reminded of the short story titled "Another Check Mark
On the List." This is a story about a 15-year-old boy named John who, on
one rainy day, when it was too wet outside to play, he decided to write a list
of goals. John continued writing until he had 127 goals.
These goals included exploring the Nile River, climbing high mountain
peaks around the world and learning 3 foreign languages. He also
wanted to be featured in a Rose Bowl Parade and play several musical
instruments.
Of the 127 goals that he listed over 60 years ago, John has achieved
108. If he lives to become 75 years old he will achieve 109 (he
listed "live to see the 21st Century"). How did John achieve all of
these goals? He wrote them down.
Step 1: Write It Down
Write it down, write it down, and write it down!
Have you ever got to a point where you were going to write down a New
Year's Resolution or some other goal you thought you wanted, only to
find yourself procrastinate. One year later, did you need to achieve
the same New Year's Resolution or goal? Why does this happen?
It happens because of that little voice inside of you that says, "I
am not good enough or worthy enough to be in possession of the
benefits derived from achieving my goal." "I have been programmed
for
failure."
I recently read a motivational quote that said: "If you can't write
it down, you can't do it."
Let's think about that for a minute. Every day you may be compiling
lists of things to do to run your household, perform your job, or
plan your business trip or vacation. How many times do you really
write down, exactly what you want out of life? How many long term or
short-term goals do you write down?
Now when thinking about what you want to achieve focus your attention
on specific words and ideas relating to your goals. Give those words
and ideas your complete attention as you write them down.
Did you ever write a letter, business report or term paper and at
times find your fingers flying across the keyboard?
Since written words are symbols of objects, ideas or feelings, could
the physical process of entering these words onto a page actually
create a subconscious connection?
I believe it does. When you use language to communicate on paper, you
need to process the information on a subconscious level.
The help you are getting while creating your list of goals is coming
straight from your powerful subconscious mind. Why not take advantage
of the power of your mind in achieving your goals?
Write your goals down in your day planner, write them down and hang
them on your walls. Write your goals on sticky notes and place them
on your bathroom mirror or on your windows.
Every time you write your goals down, your body is moving towards
them. The goals are getting clearer and clearer. The roadmap you
create by writing goals down is projected straight to your
subconscious mind and is being acted upon.
A now popular syndicated cartoonist wrote down 15 times a day, every
day the following sentence. "I want to be a syndicated cartoonist."
He did this every single day, even when he didn't feel like a
syndicated cartoonist. Now, Scott Adams, the creator of the "Dilbert
Cartoon" is a full-time, syndicated cartoonist, known the world over.
Scott "wrote it down."
One way to state that goal in a more positive and immediate context
is to say, "I am a syndicated cartoonist." Act as if you already are
in possession of the goal. It takes a lot of pressure off you during
your daily activities when you feel the new role. You then become
comfortable with it.
Write your goals down everywhere. As you write them down think about
John, the 15-year-old goal achiever from the "Chicken Soup for the
Soul" story. Now that John is in his seventies, what advice would
John have for you when you ask him, "What is the most important thing
I can do to achieve my goals?"
Listen to John whisper in your ear these three words... write it down.
About the Author: Wayne F. Perkins
is a clinical hypnotherapist and the author of How to Hypnotize Yourself
Without Losing Your Mind. He presents corporate training sessions on, how
to achieve your goals. http://www.wayneperkins.net/
|