Eating Twelve Grapes Under The Table

Superstitions, Resolutions & Hope For The New Year

Since 2022, I’ve spent the last days of December preparing a vision board for the upcoming year. Each time, I sit down, open Pinterest, and begin to dream.

I find pictures that resonate with my vision of a better tomorrow. I slowly build a collage of quotes, paintings and photographs, and, once it’s done, set it as my homepage on my phone. The themes vary year to year - sometimes it’s love, others it’s wealth, sometimes (rarely) it’s health - but the ultimate goal always remains the same - make life even better.

My friends have their own traditions and rituals. Burning pieces of paper with things they want to leave behind scribbled down, eating 12 grapes under a table in under a minute to make their wishes come true, and wearing red underwear on new year’s eve to bring love into their lives.

Every year, we try various methods to help us build the life we fantasize about for ourselves, and I find that kind of sweet.

I love this time of year because all of us at least entertain the idea of what we’d like to achieve and what we feel we could change. We look back on what the closing year brought us, and consider the ways we can nourish our lives in the future. It’s a time of inspiration, review, and planning.

To my great fortune, I was born on the 31st (and my mother’s misfortune - New Year's eve spent in a hospital certainly isn’t a top choice for anyone). Being a New Year’s Eve baby, a superstition I hold is - however I spend my birthday is how I will spend the year. It’s because of this that I make it a point to be as positive as possible, surrounding myself with close friends and family, eating food that makes both my body and soul happy (namely, sushi and cake), and listening to music that makes me want to boogie down (think 70s and 80s).

This year, I did much of the same, holding a light buzz from espresso martinis (my new obsession) while running around town, taking friends out for drinks and treats. At one point, I was sitting in a café, when KISS’ “I Was Made for Lovin’ You” came on. I was singing along, having a great time, and thought to myself why isn’t life always this great?

Then, I thought - why can’t life always be this great?

Nothing I did was extraordinary or unrepeatable—I see my friends often enough. So, why don’t I treat every day like my birthday?

The answer came to me later that day, when I came across a TikTok where a girl compared her vision board for 2024 with clips of her year, spent mostly at the office. It struck me how many of her dreams—both big and small—never happened because life got in the way.

Most of us get so lost in our day to day that we forget to give equal commitment to our joy. Then, come New Year, we zoom our focus out to see the past 365 days and declare ‘enough is enough.’ I am the first to see my own shortcomings in how I am spending my life, yet when I go into the hours and minutes of each day, I seem to forget why I’m doing any of it. All I know is that things need to get done, and so I do them.

What we seem to need reminding of is that we’re here to live, not to exist. Of course, we have things we need to do in order to sustain living, but when the priorities flip it leaves us passively watching time go by. We’re left with end-of-year remorse, and a bleak outlook on life. So, by taking the time to actually put in the effort to be happy, and not only dream of it, we open the possibility of having a new year start every day (and not just on the 31st).

This year, on the evening of the 31st, and after sobering up and putting on a new set of pj’s (a feng shui belief to bring in prosperity), I considered what resolutions I’d like to make, and decided on one - I will treat every day as if it’s my birthday.

I’ll weave that joy into being, and choose to celebrate my life for what it is - a gift.

So, whatever superstitions or beliefs you have, I hope that they bring you the same glee that mine bring me. I wish for you to have every day filled with the hope of what life can bring tomorrow, and that each passing moment makes being alive something deliberate and fulfilling.

Life’s too short to spend only one day a year on making the effort to be happy.