New Year's Dawn
New Year's Dawn (January 1) is a major holiday across the known world that celebrates the beginning of a new calendar year in the Material calendar.
Execution
In the days leading up to the new year, families gather and clean their homes as thoroughly as possible. Children often go door-to-door in small groups offering to do simple chores (sweeping stoops, scrubbing dishes, hanging the washing, etc.) in exchange for copper pieces and candied nuts or other sweets.
The evening before New Year's Dawn is to be spent with one's family and/or closest loved ones. Everyone rises before dawn to watch the first sunrise of the year together. Tradition holds that those who watch the first sunrise of the year with you will be with you through its final sunset.
After the sun has fully risen, families gather around a bonfire or hearth and pass around single fortune-telling cards to symbolize something that's coming in the next year. One can choose to either toss their card in the fire whole-- agreeing to accept The Fates' gift for the year-- or rip it in half before burning it in an attempt to reject or ward off the gift.
Components and tools
Clothing
Wearing new clothing to welcome the year is considered good luck. In urban areas, the new clothing tends to be fancier; in more rural places, hand-knit scarves and sweaters are often exchanged.Decorations
Decorations are few and far between for the holiday, as they add to the clutter and the difficulty of cleaning. If anything, brooms and dustpans are the major symbol of the holiday. In the southeastern Aquatic Kingdoms, garlands of chilis are also hung from doors and entryways once they are cleaned.Foods
The most universal New Year's tradition is the consumption of a special spicy noodle dish. As spicy foods clear the sinuses, and the brain is the seat of the Soul, this is believed to cleanse the spirit of any baggage or impurities from the past year and ready a person to start the year afresh. The spices burn away the old year's spirit, leaving you to start anew; the spicier the dish, the more prepared you are for a fresh start.- In the midlands of the Dreibach Empire (particularly Breughelland), the heaviest spices used are black pepper and horseradish, ideally lots of both. The noodle is thin, like an angel-hair pasta.
- Sona and other cultures in the middle Aquatic Kingdoms use a wide, flat egg noodle, crab or scallop, and green onion, with heavy ginger and chili. (A good chef will know to add a little lime, as well.)
- The elves of Scalados enjoy chewy, freshly made noodles made of either wheat or rice that are boiled in coconut milk, then flash-fried in chili oil and served with a slow-cooked curry sauce full of chunks of carrot, potato, and sometimes pork or venison.
- In Cape Hildegard, the thin, airy rice noodles are largely just a vehicle for smoked puffin in a sharp vinegar-based sauce. There are usually a wide variety of pickles at the table, too.
- In Cantonova, the noodles are short spiral shapes in a thick sauce full of butter, cumin, and birdseye chili. The soft tofu folded into the noodles makes a nice contrast with the liberal topping of fried onions and red pepper crisp.
- For Adamant and the southern provinces of Dreibach, it's a thin wheat-based noodle, invariably handmade, with a sauce from the last of the carefully canned and preserved tomatoes from last Jarmas and an eye-watering amount of garlic. Families and communities gather collectively in the kitchen to prepare the meal; it's as much an activity as it is a dish.
- The Prairie Clans of the West, in an extremely rare moment of vague togetherness, hold an eating contest wherein representatives of each clan try to eat spicier and spicier versions of the dish. Medics remain on hand for all sides-- a practice grown from needed experience.
- For reasons fully inscrutable to all other civilizations, Erdelan believes the noodle dish should instead be a soup. Dwarves in other lands are routinely mocked for this.
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