New Year’s custom, with pan-Hellenic reach. Even today, many people are very careful about who will enter their house first in the new year, that is to say, who will do footwork. So, from the eve they tell one of their own people, whom they consider lucky and well-mannered, to come on New Year’s Day to give them a foot massage. As soon as he enters the house he is made to step on an iron so that everyone will be iron and strong in the house during the new year. The housewife kisses the man who does footwork for the good of the time. Usually, she gives him apples or walnuts and a spoonful of sweet quince or whatever other sweet she has made for the holidays.
The custom of “footwear” is very old. The words of the bishop of Nyssis Grigoriou about the Byzantines are typical, that on New Year’s they “celebrate the right kind of happiness”, that is, to meet or receive in their home a person who, as they thought, would bring them happiness.
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In Amorgos, they make sure that someone from the house itself enters first, when they return from church. Holding a small icon in his hand, he takes two steps inside, saying: “Come in.” He then turns back and says: “Out bad.” This is repeated three times. Finally, saying “Mesa good” again, he throws a pomegranate to break inside the house and enters with wishes for a happy new year.
According to another custom, in the past, free girls would get up on New Year’s morning and go to the fountain with a pitcher to bring the silent water. There they sweetened their lives with sugar and honey and many other goodies that they left for the poor. They had to go and turn without speaking and sprinkle the corners of the house with the silent water to drive away the evil demons. Today the owner of the house or whoever does the footwork sprinkles the corners of the house, after sweetening the fates by pouring a little sugar into the tap!
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The pomegranate is considered a lucky fruit and usually in Crete and elsewhere they hang a pomegranate, from the beginning of December, outside the front door or on the balcony for good luck. When the year changes, the owner of the house throws a pomegranate to the threshold with the force of a pomegranate. The more pomegranate seeds scattered on the floor, the greater will be the good luck and abundance in the new year!
Skeletura, also known as megalekremydo or immortal leek, is a wild plant of Crete that even if you take it out of the ground and hang it, it does not stop producing new leaves and flowers. The scallion or onion (Scilla maritima) is considered to have a great vital energy that is transferred to the space and this is the reason why the inhabitants used to hang it in their homes on New Year’s Day. The custom is mentioned as early as the 6th BC. century.
Another New Year’s custom is the placement of a large stone at the entrance of every household on New Year’s in several regions of Crete, so that the house is as strong and solid as the stone.
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It is very important that the footwork is done with the right, so that the year goes well and on the right! Happy birthday and be sure to welcome the first person who will cross the threshold of their house with sweets, and with him the new year with a smile and wishes for health, prosperity and happiness! Cheers and happy 2024!
Source: www.zougla.gr
