Happy New Year!

Similar to our lumps of coal routine Gillian , glad the dark haired people get involved as being blond with a beard get pretty busy at Christmas!

We used to send my brother to see people living in the street yrs ago. It was lucky to see a dark haired boy first thing in the new yr. Nobody wanted me - I was gingery.

We also used to go out to sing like carol singing at midnight.
Old traditions seem to have died out now.

I'm sure we intrigue the neighbours with some of our customs!

~it used to be a black haired man with a lump of coal and a piece of cake~my father being jet black haired was always popular!

My dad used to walk round block with money in pocket and always carried lump of coal however he never ever went out one door and in other because that was considered unlucky.

Happy New Year, Gillian

I have carried on the 'First footing with a lump of coal tradition' from my Mother (my home heating is all electric but hey).

Happy new year, loved reading this, i think the only 'tradition' around here is to get as drunk as possible and then make sure you are standing near that taisty fella/girly that you fancy ready for a midnight snog lol - ofcourse i no long partake in these activities anymore lol

Happy New Year Gillian. I have heard of this tradition but never done it. I remember my Mum talking about it from when she was a child.

Wow! I have heard of "First Footing" but never knew what it meant. I belong to a "card site" which has a card for "First Footing" but was afraid to send it to anyone for fear of offending. Now I know why the black dog carries the lump of coal. (I didn't even know it was a lump of coal until this blog.) Thanks for the education...

Happy New Year to you and yours Gillian...

Just catching up with blogs.
This is an interesting one. :o)

Happy new year too, my dad was always the one who got picked as he was the only one with dark hair off he went with his lump of coal, every year apparently!

Glad to find out we're not the only family that does this odd stuff!