How To Start New Year's Off On The Right Foot
The start of a new year is a time for new beginnings and a fresh outlook on life. Everyone hopes for good fortune in the coming months, yet many do little more than make a quiet resolution with regards to their approach to the year ahead. Perhaps there is more that you can do to bring good fortune this year. What if you knew just the right cards to play to ensure that good karma and abundance would be waiting for you in the new year?
Take our quiz to determine if the choices you typically make when celebrating the new year are more (or less) likely to lead you to prosperity in 2012.
1. A kiss at midnight ensures that your relationship will remain strong for the next year, but without one you set the stage for a year of coldness. What scenario most closely describes your New Year's?
a) Prepare a home-cooked romantic dinner and enjoy it together over candlelight at a table set for two, covered in rose petals. And a perfect kiss at the stroke of midnight.
b) Make your signature sweet and spicy popcorn and curl up on the couch together to watch When Harry Met Sally, as you're too tired to go out. Yet before the clock strikes midnight, you fall asleep in your partner's arms.
c) You're out at a raging New Year's party with all your friends. Your significant other went to the bar to get refills but is taking a long time. You go to check up on him and find him hitting on another girl. A drunken fight ensues and you miss midnight altogether.
2. According to mythology, making loud noises at the stroke of midnight scares away evil spirits and ushers in a prosperous year. Which of the following most resembles a New Year's Eve spent at home with your family?
a) The kids shriek the 10-second countdown to midnight at the top of their lungs, while sounding off an endless cacophony of bells and rattles from their noisemakers to ring in the new year.
b) You finish watching The Little Mermaid just in time to wake the kids up to share a sleepy viewing of the ball drop on TV.
c) You set the satellite radio to classical tunes after dinner, and feign a yawn with the hopes that the kids will go down easily at 9 p.m. and you can be in bed soon thereafter.
3. Taking the last sip from the champagne bottle on New Year's is said to bring good luck. Which of the following most resembles your typical New Year's Eve out on the town?
a) As the very last person to go home, well after dawn the next morning, you make it to your door armed with an empty bottle in one hand and a noisemaker in the other, although missing your coat.
b) You spend the night with friends at a local bar, enjoying some light fare and cocktails, and then leave the "party" around 12:01 a.m.
c) You show your face for an hour at the beginning of the party, making it home well before midnight so you can get your beauty rest.
4. It's bad luck to allow anything, even garbage, to leave the house on the New Year's Day before something is brought in first. After hosting a New Year's party at home, which of the following is most likely to happen?
a) You hit the hay immediately, with a hangover lasting long into New Year's Day, and no energy or will to empty the trash until Jan. 2.
b) You start cleaning up, bringing at least the empty bottles out to the recycling bins so your kitchen doesn't reek of beer and tequila the next day.
c) A major clean-up session commences before you even take off your dressy clothes, including a trip to the garbage to clear away all evidence of the festivities before heading to bed.
5. Southerners believe eating black-eyed peas and collard greens on New Year's Day will bring good luck and fortune in the coming year. Which of the following most closely resembles your first meal of the year?
a) Black-eyed peas, ham hocks, and collard greens. Comfort foods to the max!
b) Egg McMuffins from McDonald's — as there's no better way to start the new year than alongside your reliable redheaded friend, Ronnie.
c) Egg whites and dry toast please! I'm watching my figure in 2012.
6. Doing a small amount of work on New Year's Day will supposedly help your career in the year to come, but starting a serious work project is unlucky. Which of the following projects are you most likely to start?
a) It's tradition to make soup on New Year's, and the first batch you make is an age-old family recipe that you could follow in your sleep.
b) You're teaching the kids how to make pancakes and French toast for the first time.
c) As the wearer of the 'Top Home Chef' toque, you'll be mastering the perfect beef Wellington, following a challenging recipe you've never tried before.
How did you do? Share your results with us in the comments below!
Mostly A's = According to the gods of superstition and good fortune, you have an excellent track record and your decisions will lead to prosperity and good fortune in the year to come.
Mostly B's = The spirits of fortune are fighting, and patterns conclude that 2012 will commence with a rocky start.
Mostly C's = You are not very concerned at all about the prophecies controlling your destiny. Good luck — your juju is likely to be in jeopardy for all of 2012.