The Time Between the Years by Sadira Stone

For those who celebrate, I hope you had a splendid Christmas. The roast beast (or your favorite holiday dish) has been consumed and the wrapping paper cleared away. Time to take a deep breath and enjoy a moment of quiet before the glitz and clamor of New Year’s Eve.

Though American by birth, I spent thirty years in Germany, where this period is called die Zeit zwischen den Jahren, or “the time between the years,” that quiet period between Christmas and New Year’s when we sit back, munch cookies, and reflect on the past year while planning our goals for the next. Read on for some fun Germans traditions for this time.

Why “between the years?” That has to do with the change to the Gregorian calendar. Attached to their old celebrations, Europeans took many years to accept this new start date for the year, since they were accustomed to celebrating in on December 25, or in some places, in March or even Easter.

Fun fact: This idea of a transitional time between the old year and the new one also exists in the Jewish tradition and even in Ancient Egypt, as this time marked the Nile’s annual flood, more or less.

Nowadays, the time between Christmas and New Year’s Eve (Silvester in Germany, named after the Saint’s day that falls on December 31^st) is associated with predicting your fate and ensuring good luck for the coming year. For example, you can buy lead-pouring kits (Bleigießen), where you melt little lead ingots, pour a glop of molten lead into water, and interpret the resulting shape to predict what the new year has in store for you.   

In Austria and Southern Germany, this time of year brings noisy, rowdy parades of scary, costumed figures who drive away evil spirits. Did you know that’s why we bang pots and shoot off fireworks on NY Eve? Gotta scare away any demons who might pollute the new year.

At midnight on New Year’s Eve/Silverster, the whole neighborhood moves outside at midnight to drink champagne, holler, shoot off bottle rockets, and raise a ruckus. Prost Neu Jahr!

Other German superstition: Don’t hang laundry out to dry during this time, or wandering spirits might get caught in your sheets and wreak their revenge on the household. Also, for good luck eat lentil soup, sauerkraut, and fried carp during this time. People give gifts of Glücksbringer, lucky charms like chimney sweeps, ladybugs, lucky pigs, four-leaf clovers, and lucky pennies (1 Euro cent).

So if you want to celebrate the German way, give your friends a chocolate pig or ladybug and wish them “einen guten Rutsch”—a good slide (into the new year.)

And here’s my all-time favorite Germany New Year’s tradition—Germans love to watch a 1963 British comedy short called Dinner for One, with Freddie Finton and May Ward.  It’s just 18 minutes long. Watch it—you won’t be sorry! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlNk1aQcn-Y

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Do you still have room for a little holiday fun? Try my Bangers Tavern Romance series, steamy contemporary romance set in a neighborhood bar in Tacoma, Washington, my former hometown. Christmas Rekindled offers Pacific Northwest holiday fun. And if you’re sick of Christmas, try Opposites Ignite, which centers around an Anti-Valentine’s Day party at Bangers Tavern, or Delicious Heat, which covers Bangers’ St. Patrick’s Day Bash and Cinco de Mayo fiesta. Sweet Slow Sizzle centers around Bangers Tavern’s Halloween bash. Only want a tiny taste? Try my Bangers Tavern novella Cupid’s Silver Spark, just 99 cents! I had so much run writing these holiday celebrations, and I hope you’ll enjoy reading them just as much!

All the Bangers Tavern books are available from your favorite eBook retailer.

Christmas Rekindled: https://books2read.com/b/3JjPxP

Opposites Ignite: https://books2read.com/u/m0wjvP

Delicious Heat: https://books2read.com/deliciousheat

Sweet Slow Sizzle: https://books2read.com/SweetSlowSizzle

Cupid’s Silver Spark: https://books2read.com/cupidssilverspark

Award-winning contemporary romance author Sadira Stone spins steamy, smoochy tales set in small businesses—a quirky bookstore, a neighborhood bar, a vintage boutique. Set in the U.S. Pacific Northwest, her stories highlight found family, friendship, and the sizzling chemistry that pulls unlikely partners together. When she emerges from her writing cave in Las Vegas, Nevada (which she seldom does), she can be found in dance class, strumming her ukulele, exploring the Western U.S. with her charming husband, cooking up a storm, and gobbling all the romance books. For a guaranteed HEA (and no cliffhangers!) visit Sadira at sadirastone.com.

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https://linktr.ee/SadiraStone