Two Double Oh Six
There’s an old tradition. I don’t know if it’s just a country tradition or what, but the way it goes is that if the first guest to enter your home on January 1st is a male then you will have good luck throughout the coming year. You will have even better luck if it is a dark -haired male. And if he enters carrying bread or a piece of cake, it symbolizes that you will have prosperity throughout the year.
So, may you have a dark-haired cake-bearing fellow knock on your door today. If he’s not bearing cake, he most likely will be bearing sausage. I don’t know how lucky or prosperous sausage is, put it could potentially be fun.
I hope whoever I visit isn’t a vegetarian….But, then again, there’s always cucumber. 
January 1st, 2006 at 2:48 pm
I had never heard of this. We could use some good luck this year, so please, come right over! Oh, and did I mention that we were fresh out of cake?
January 1st, 2006 at 3:48 pm
Can I be your first?
January 1st, 2006 at 6:50 pm
Oh dear! No one has come to my house today. What could that mean?
January 2nd, 2006 at 1:11 am
You can bring the cake and the sausage
January 2nd, 2006 at 8:24 am
This is an old Scottish tradition called “first-footing”. Your first visitor after midnight symbolises the year ahead. A tall, dark, handsome man was best. He should bring a lump of coal and a piece of fruitcake (black bun). Redheads, women, doctors, ministers and grave-diggers would not have been especially welcome. Here are some links:
http://www.visitscotland.com/library/hogmanaytraditions
http://www.hogmanay.net/history/faq#firstfootin
http://www.new-year.co.uk/firstfoot.html
January 2nd, 2006 at 11:14 am
I swear i have NEVER heard of this but I like it!
January 2nd, 2006 at 7:53 pm
How fantastic. A dark haired man baring sausage entered my house yesterday.
I’m so happpy now - though not quite as happy as when his sausage was —nevermind. Anyway, Happy New Year.
January 3rd, 2006 at 6:56 am
Don’t know why, but for some reason I seem to recall this as best being a chimney-sweep (hence the swarthiness and the lump of coal.)
Can’t move for them around here of course (GawdblessyaMaryPoppins!)
January 10th, 2006 at 9:50 am
I will never forget that. A prosperous sausage. God the bounty that implies and the pillow biting. A little stretched and sticky is the perfect way to start the new year.
kb