Cynthia Toothman and her daughter Stephanie spend New Year's Eve making thin cookies called Pizzelles. It's just one thing on the family's to-do list.
"We make sure we that we clean the house from top to bottom to get all the old energy out for the New Year,” Toothman says.
And while they're cleaning, the Toothman's leave coins on every single window sill.
“For prosperity, we make sure we put coins on our window sills that way you always have a little something coming in rather than going out,” she says. “We didn't take any chances this year, we put paper with our coins because of the fiscal cliff."
It's a tradition the Toothman family has done for years.
“I can remember being four-years-old and getting my handful of change and putting it on the window sills,” she says.
It’s much like the black-eye pea tradition for Robin Mangarin-Scott and her family.
"It's a tradition that was started by grandmother and her grandmother we've done every year, but the funny thing in my house, is that I’m the only one who will eat black-eye peas,” Mangarin-Scott says. “And we all know that it's for luck, so we take a spoon full of black eye peas."
Families across the nation have whipped up this dish for many years. Some traditional New Year's Eve meals also include collard or turnip greens to symbolize the “green” for money. Since black-eye peas swell when cooked, they symbolize prosperity. Many put a piece of pork in the dish because pigs root forward, which represents a positive motion.
But for some, black-peas are an acquired taste.
"I think they're delicious,” Mangarin-Scott says. “And I have to force feed them to my family, that's why I have so much luck and they don't."
