New Year's Traditions 2022
Table Talk
Setting the Table
Light a candle if you wish, and take a moment to center down where you are for a time of reflection and prayer. Take a deep breath. Check in with yourself, with your breathing and your body. Where do you sense tension or pain? Where do you feel relaxed and at ease? Rest your gaze gently or close your eyes and take one more deep breath.
Consider the way that new beginnings offer renewed possibility!
And the table will be wide.
And the welcome will be wide.
And the arms will open wide to welcome us in.
And our hearts will be open wide to receive.
- Jan Richardson
Food for Thought
I visited our neighborhood grocery store looking for some last-minute items to help ring in the new year with our kids. I decided earlier in the week that we would just do something simple for the first lunch of the new year - something the kids would eat - like mac and cheese, spaghetti, or ramen. But as I passed by the picked-through shelves of canned peas and vegetables, the completely empty sections of fresh greens, and the scattered boxes of cornbread mix, I felt a twinge of yearning build within me. I was reminded of all the meals that had kicked off the first day of every year before this one.
For as long as I can remember, my family has gathered at my grandparents’ house to celebrate New Year’s Day. It is a joyful gathering with a table that is set wide with welcome, that is spread wide with delicious food, and that is held wide with love and people and tradition. Before offering the blessing, we take a moment to go around the room giving thanks for what has been and offering blessings of hope for what the year ahead will hold. After this time of reflection and blessing, we eat!
Spread across the table are our traditional New Year’s foods - greens, ham, black-eyed peas, and cornbread to bring health, prosperity, and luck in the new year. But to go alongside those, we also have biscuits, turkey, rice, lima beans, corn, and my personal favorite, chicken pastry. It truly is a labor of love - a gift to all who gather. I remember one New Year’s Day, as we were enjoying our food around the table, I asked my grandma to share with me the secret in making her pastry. She quietly leaned over to me and said, “Honey, they sell those in the frozen section right beside the biscuits.” “You mean you don’t make these from scratch?,” I whispered. (I thought she made everything from scratch.) “I used to,” she said, “but now you can buy them from the store and they taste just as good with a lot less worry and mess.”
As I reached the biscuits in the frozen area, I recalled this conversation with my Grandma. The frozen strips of pastry dough were right where she said they would be, so I put a box in my cart and decided I would give it a try.
Our traditions have looked very different recently - there are traditions that we have put on hold, traditions that we have revisited and remade, there are new traditions that we will carry forward with us, and there are traditions that, for our health and benefit, we have had to let go. For all my years, this traditional New Year's meal has nourished my body and my soul. It is one of the traditions I'm holding onto in this season, and I will do my best to share it with my family this year.
I am nowhere near the southern chef my grandma was, but today our table will be set wide. The table will be open wide with the laughter and love of our small family gathered around it, it will be set wide with the dishes and traditions spread across and shared together, it will be splattered wide with the full and messy enjoyment that little ones bring to every meal, it will be broken wide with hope for what this New Year holds for each and every one of us, and our hearts will be open wide to receive.
We are grateful that The Welcome Table has brought us together once again. On this first day of a new year, we are wishing you and yours a bright and hope-filled year ahead.
Advent at The Welcome Table is a resource that can continue to guide your daily reflections even after the Advent season. With each book sold, 10% of that purchase will go toward Feeding America to help put food on the tables of hungry families. Click on the link to purchase a copy of Advent at The Welcome Table today!
Blessing
May our hearts and tables be open and full with laughter and love, and may we be reminded to offer gratitude for the opportunities for renewal and togetherness throughout the coming year.
A little Table Talk for your table...
Share some of your favorite New Year’s traditions.
What are some new traditions that you have acquired as you have gotten older, and how have you found them enriching to your New Year’s experience?
What are you excited about this year? What are some fun things you have planned? How do you intend to be together with your community and loved ones?
Try taking it to the Kids Table...
What are some traditional New Year’s dishes in your culture? What is your kiddo’s favorite New Year’s dish?
Ask your child what they are excited about in the coming year.
Have them write down or draw one new thing they want to try this year.
Meet our Welcoming Voice!
Lin Story-Bunce is a North Carolina native, and lovingly calls Greensboro, NC home. She earned a Masters of Divinity from Wake Forest University and has served a wonderful and thoughtful congregation at College Park Baptist Church since 2009, pastoring to families and their faith development. Most of all, Lin loves the moments she gets to connect with her family, snowboarding with her wife and keeping up with their four kiddos and two energetic pups. Lin is a teacher, preacher, dreamer, and procrastinator who, if you ask her youth group, has a knack for trying to do way too many things in far too little time.
To hear more from Lin throughout the week, follow along on our Instagram!
Here are Five Things to Remember When Setting Your Table for the Holidays!