Eleanor Roosevelt said it well: “Beautiful young people are accidents of nature, but beautiful old people are works of art.”

Recently I took a mini vacay to the Bay Area, which included visits with my step-mom, Auntie Jeanne and Auntie Pat.

These women are in their mid to late 70s and I admire each one. They read books and have hobbies. None are shy to voice their opinions, have had meaningful careers and share their love freely. I have known these women all of my life and their vitality matches my memories of them at age 20, 40 and 60.

I hope that when I grow up I will have as much moxie and know-how.

Next month will be my birthday, and it’s a big one. A couple of months ago a friend and I took a walk across the Chico State campus.

“Wow, I hadn’t seen so-and-so for a while,” I said. “She’s looking older all of a sudden.”

“That’s the same thing people probably say about us,” my friend replied. “You just see me all the time and you see yourself in the mirror every day. You don’t notice the changes when you watch them slowly.”

That made me look in the mirror.

This impending birthday shouldn’t be a big deal. I might not even think about my age if the social media ads would stop advertising products for “older women” and AARP stopped sending me membership offers (AARP sends these via snail mail, because they know how to reach my demographic).

I’ve been thinking about this big birthday for so many months that I had mentally adjusted to the age. I had to do the math to remember exactly how old I will be next month. Luckily, I chose to laugh at myself rather than worry about early memory loss.

“Getting old isn’t pretty,” I sometimes think when I smear Retinol cream under my eyes. My mom has a skylight in the guest bathroom. When I visit, I put on my makeup in that harsh light and am surprised at the ratio of gray-to-blonde. Thank goodness for the 60-watt dull glow in my own bathroom.

But my perspective changed after visiting all those amazing women in the Bay Area. My Auntie Pat has been in the hospital three times over the past six months. She said her body is not being kind to her.

I don’t see Auntie Pat every day, so I noticed the changes since the last time I visited. She’s still recovering from the recent illness, and needs her cane more often. This didn’t stop her from feeding my younger sister and I carrot cake and talking for hours about this, that and the other thing. She talks with her hands, a family trait, and got giddy when she showed pictures of her new great-grandbabies. We had so much fun that our visit extended into the evening and we decided to drive to Niles Canyon for ice cream and pizza.

After visiting my two aunts and my step-mom, I realized that getting older is absolutely beautiful.

I travel south several times a year with my work, but it’s dramatically different when I can roam as I please. On this recent trip, I visited my hometown and remembered how lucky I was to grow up just a mile from the Carquinez Strait. My sister and I languished for half an hour and ate gelato in Washington Square in North Beach. I unabashedly eavesdropped on a dysfunctional conversation between a father and son and my sister and I counted the couples (young and old) snuggling on blankets on the grass. We strolled through Haight-Ashbury and grooved on Latin Music at the corner bar a few blocks from her funky apartment. I watched seagulls while she did yoga in an Alameda park overlooking the Bay.

Leaving the water behind, I drove through the horse country of Calaveras County with fresh eyes, the rolling green hills were a warm welcome.

On my final trek back to Chico, I dropped back into civilization via a rural route to meet a friend for coffee in Rancho Cordova. As the green hills faded into the backdrop, the modern civilization appeared rather abruptly. Just a few miles before I reached the dense housing developments, I passed roads including Frogs Leap Drive and Bear Hollow. Do any frogs remain in this area, I wondered. Were there bears in some long-gone hollow?

Sometimes I laugh and sometimes I cringe at street names that now seem out of place with a landscape of street lights and stucco, gas stations and places that sell food to eat in your car.

In Chico we have the Almond Orchard shopping center, where there was likely once an almond orchard. In the Bay Area an entire town is called Walnut Creek, named in the 1860s because of the number of walnut trees. Now there are five zip codes in Walnut Creek and you would need to do a long search to find a walnut tree.

We can complain about urbanization or we can keep searching for places to escape on a long weekend and enjoy the history hidden in street names.

In Paradise, you can find Apple View Way, which is just a half a skip from Noble Orchard. I have passed by Lucky John Road many times, and I hope some historian will tell me the real story. I always imagine there was a guy named John who found a very large gold nugget during the Gold Rush. Maybe he bought a big plot of land and found a pretty wife.

Other towns have street names that fit a certain category. In Chico’s case, we have Mangrove, Palm, Spruce, Laburnum, Oleander, Magnolia, Citrus. I looked up the word Arcadian and one definition is “an ideal rural Paradise.”

Elk Grove has many cowboy street names, including Wrangler and Equestrian drives, and roads called Sloughhouse, Eagles Nest and White Rock.

In Durham you won’t wonder why we visit Blossom Lane to view the almond bloom. There’s also a Nut Buggy Lane. You can also find Big Dog Court on the map, which makes me wonder if they named the road rather than posting a “beware of dog” sign.

Some of the charm of new street names is lost in our day of large housing developments. We’ll see streets named along some generic theme, such as female names or flowers. There’s a neighborhood near my nieces’ house in Redding with names out of this world, including Comet Street, Martian and Galaxy Way, Corona, Nebula and numerous planets. Someday, maybe streets will be named after things that are soon to be obsolete, including Landline Telephone Way, Gas Turbine Engine Avenue and Paper Currency Drive.

For now, I view shopping as a task, like doing the laundry and cleaning the house before a visit from my mother.

My disdain for idle browsing has caused me to be intolerant of the habits of the majority of folks who actually enjoy touching fabric, comparing items they have no intention of owning and digging into big bins of sale items other shoppers have already rejected.

Yet, I’ve recently realized there are more reasons to enjoy shopping than an escape from boredom or the fleeting rush of adrenaline that comes with buying a new flouncy skirt. This week I attended presentations by the group of international educators who are in Chico as part of my work with international training. One teacher chose shopping and money as the backdrop for a useful vocabulary lesson. She began the teaching session with an electronic poll that asked each member of the audience to share one word about shopping. I chose not to participate because I felt my views would not be helpful nor appreciated.

• Relaxation

• Gifts for family

• Fun

These are understandable reactions, even though I feel there is nothing particularly relaxing about repeatedly telling salespeople that I don’t need any help and scanning the shop like the Terminator on the hunt for John Connor.

Then a word appeared on the projector screen that made me pause.

Memories

Part of my job with the international groups is to take participants to San Francisco. When we plan the visits we hope to package a series of memorable moments — a walk across the Golden Gate Bridge, the toss of a frisbee at Ocean Beach, the smell of seals at Pier 39. At no point would I imagine fishing through messy stacks of hoodies at the “everything under $10” store would make the list of “top 10 things to do in San Francisco.”

Yet, when the word “memories” popped up on the list of reasons to enjoy shopping, I realized I sometimes view the world through a narrow lens.

I may rush in and out of my local Walmart, but I do browse when I travel. Most of my spending far from home is not on collectable art or local handcraft. My refrigerator holds hundreds of dollars of magnets, the majority of which are made in China and purchased at train stations. One of my prized possessions is a $9 denim jacket from Walmart, covered in patches I bought from gift shops in places like Valley of the Giants, Istanbul and the dock near a cruise ship in Alaska. I call it my $40,000 jacket.

When my friends from other countries return home next week, they’ll fondly think of their day in San Francisco, with the brief visit by a rainbow above the Ferris Wheel along the Embarcadero. I snapped the photo of the rainbow while I was waiting outside of the gift shop. Gerele of Mongolia will wear her plastic boots from Lulu’s in downtown Chico and remember her hike in the rain from Van Ness to Lombard Street. The teachers will bundle up in $10 hoodies emblazoned with “Golden State,” and smile when a husband dangles his keychain with the image of California’s extinct grizzly bear.

I also now realize there is another word that can be added to the list of shopping benefits: receiving.

This week I was in the middle of a circle of international teachers who admired my multicolored outfit. One woman was pleased to be using some new American vocabulary.

“Let me see if I can use this word right,” she said, smiling with newfound knowledge. “Your outfit is funky.”

I decided to take this as a compliment.

This led to a longer-than-necessary explanation of the origins of my memorabilia.

The bright coral sweater was a gift from Limia of Qatar, who decided my clothes were too drab and I should cheer myself with pink. My bracelet was a gift from Africa and my earrings from Armenia. My new little cell phone purse is from Valya of Armenia and my layered sweater is from my Handsome Woodsman old clothes collection. The scarf of many colors was a gift from Dinara from my recent visit to Kyrgyzstan. By the time I was done with the wardrobe tour I realized my funky style is the result of much memorabilia and that people enjoyed shopping for these items.

I likely will never be a fan of shopping for shopping’s sake. However, I now realize shopping with others in mind, especially if I am eventually the recipient, is not necessarily a waste of time.

It takes only a few weeks of reading this column to understand I love plants. I root for the underdogs, believe native plants should have more rights and watch plants before, during and after their bloom.

And now is the moment of the saucer magnolia. The tree is having its moment in the sun, hour of glory, fleeting triumph. About now, when many others are bare and dormant, saucer magnolia is showing off like a nude dancer strategically hiding under a feather boa.

I often silently claim ownership of things I admire — “my river,” “my” parking space, “my” cat and Hugh Jackman.

Currently, it’s easy to admire “my” saucer magnolia, which is directly in the path from the parking lot to the entrance of my office building. I’ve watched it for weeks, stopping some days to check out the buds when they were humble gray and silhouetted in the winter sky.

And one day, in what seemed like a single blink, the tree bloomed. The petals are waxy, soft pink on the inside and a deeper hue on the outside. I can see the flowers from the second floor when I walk down the hallway near last light. Sometimes they tap against the window with the slightest breeze.

Other plants are also strutting their stuff just about now, including the flowering quince, some ranunculus, daffodils … but the saucer magnolia makes a statement, currently heralding from nearly every block in town.

The trees do well here. They like full sun and have very few problems with pests. I’m wondering if they spread easily by seed, because I’m seeing them everywhere.

The problem is, their beauty is a flash in the pan. A week has gone by since “my tree” burst into full glory. And now my tree is making a mess.

Saucer magnolia, for all their grandeur, are litter bugs.

The flowers are gentle and easily fall to the ground. My walkway is scattered with mushed petals bearing the footprints of many passersby. They quickly turn brown and stick to the concrete, sometimes turning to slippery goo if there’s rain.

I’ll admit I fall in love with the tree again and again, but it’s an on-again-off-again relationship.

I can think of a handful of other dirty trees. Mimosa tops the list and drops gunk three seasons a year. Mimosa, however, is only beautiful when covered by pipevine swallowtails. I also hate privet, with its mounds of black balls that can cover the ground as thick as snow in the foothills. When I was young and naive, I gathered three-cornered leeks and put the flowers in vases indoors, until my living room smelled like wild garlic. Learning through mistakes certainly takes a lifetime.

Mom is encouraging me to look for a house to buy, again, and if I’m successful I may own some land with a saucer magnolia. As with my tree at the office, I’d take the good and put up with the mess. However, I really appreciate these trees in other people’s yards.

In the spring, the squirrels in my ‘hood turn batty, squeaking in a tone that makes you understand why every song in the cartoon “The Chipmunks” contains high-pitched intonation, recorded in slo-mo and sped up to sound like those rodent inhaled instant coffee. In March and April, the squirrels outside my front door chase each up the tree in spirals, so quick you would only see a blur if you tried to take a photograph.

Personally, seasonal weather changes my mood. In fall I feel introspective and sometimes nostalgic. In spring I want to ride my bicycle in a long skirt and my skin feels like it is reaching out to the sun, the way you feel on a date when you can feel the person next you but you aren’t touching.

In mid-winter I feel a lull — when time stands still in the gray. The quiet of day and night goes on for a few beats longer than you think you can stand. The only remedy is to eat too much ice cream and browse gardening books. In mid-winter we’re at the outermost end of the elliptical orbit of the earth around the sun. Without gravity we would drift off into the nowhere of space. Yet, at the last possible second, the forces of gravity yank us back, toward the light, and on our way to flowers and trees brave enough to push out new leaves.

For some reason, this year winter never felt like our rotation came to a complete stop. Perhaps this is because the fall was long and beautiful, with leaves that lingered and continued to color my world. Was it more beautiful this year because I stopped often to notice the autumn leaves were beautiful? I think so.

I was still on high alert in late December when I noticed that what looked dormant was actually about to burst open after a little more rain and a little bit of sun.

I watched the saucer magnolia tree outside of Tehama Hall, each day the buds growing more swollen. The peach tree was also ready to go and when I pruned it at eye-ball height, the nodules for new growth were well on their way. Even when I lost a few potted plants on cold nights when I was too busy to save them with sheets and blankets, I barely blinked. Dead plants means empty pots and I still have a gift card for Magnolia Gift and Garden. I’ll enjoy buying a few six-packs of flowers in March, April and May.

If you’ve been cloistered inside during recent rain, you’re missing out on the earliest of spring which is as delightful as baby animals at the Silver Dollar Fair.

Last week the Bossman gave the green light to rent a 12-passenger van for the weekend. The international teachers, who are under my wing at work, joined Bethany and I as we traveled through the rain to the almond orchards. The group tumbled out during a break in the drizzle to take group photos next to the carefully cultivated rows. I drove slowly on the overpass near Blossom Lane and heard the gasp of delight from each passenger, the white of the flowers contrasted with the green weeds between trees and that dull gray sky.

When the rain threatened real business, we ducked into the Patrick Ranch Museum for a tour of the house and a walk along the porch, where hydrangea flowers have faded and new growth is ready to burst at the first sign of steady sunshine.

Visiting the best places in and around Chico was literally my job that rainy weekend, and thankfully, the crew in the white van enjoyed seeing the Sacramento River, so swollen and light chocolate brown, only a few feet from the rocky banks that protect the road. An egret and the blue heron on the Glenn County side of my river didn’t seem to mind that there were circles in the fast-moving water, created from the fat raindrops.

Soggy camelias, Daphne odora so fragrant you stand in the rain until your glasses fog. It’s still the middle of winter and there will be more reasons coming soon to keep your eyes open.

Yes, I got COVID, which to anyone who has been near me for the past four years knows is ironic. I am the queen of COVID caution. I am the princess of prevention. I have a reputation as a mask-nag. I have given so many COVID lectures to members of my international programs over the years that someone should nominate me for a TED talk. I’m fairly certain that a few of those participants had headaches from rolling their eyes too many times.

And how did I get COVID? I let down my guard.

A friend recently returned from travel and I noticed the friend looked a little tired. I thought nothing of sharing a meal and talking and talking about their trip. Then the friend got COVID and so did I, four days later.

Luckily, I was able to steer clear of the international teachers who are under my care. (No one from the program tested positive when we had a group testing).

Being sick was strange. I have kept well all this time and still heebie-jeebies found me when I was not quite as vigilant.

I felt sorry for myself and mad at myself. I talked out loud to the Handsome Woodsman, who died in a car accident in 2016. I was mad that he wasn’t there to check on me every few hours.

I am loved. I know that. And if I’m not certain, I can look in my fridge where I still have containers of an overabundance of soup dropped on my doorstep. But still, I felt sorry for myself.

COVID today

I’ll share a little practical information, just to be useful to anyone who has a friend arriving from recent travel and forgets to wear a mask when hearing their travel stories. After countless vaccines and booster shots, having COVID was similar to having a cold, not even a bad cold, just a cold. It started with a slight scratchy throat (and I wore a mask just to be overly cautious). The first two days of slight symptoms I tested negative on my home testing kits. The third day I tested positive.

I decided to take Paxlovid, because it was easy to do. I called my doctor and arranged a phone consultation. I don’t know if everyone is eligible for a prescription, but they asked me my age and weight and I qualified. I was told you need to start taking the medication within five days of the first symptoms. I gave my Bossman my birthdate and he was able to pick it up at Costco for a $25 copay.

Feeling the love

As mentioned, we’re in the middle of one of our international programs and the teachers from the group sent me numerous encouraging notes on our group text. Even with a fridge full of soup, working on my computer from home gave me flashbacks of that terrible summer of 2020.

Back then, I didn’t allow myself to wallow in the fear and uncertainty that was just below the surface of my skin. I was too busy binging Netflix and sharing empathy with my friends on Facebook. This whole COVID thing brought up flashbacks to those first few months we all endured, and I was thankful that life is mostly back to normal.

However, Super Bowl Sunday was tough. I watched the commercials online and heard shouts in my neighborhood when something amazing must have been happening. My boss thought he was being helpful when he periodically sent me updated scores.

But the worst was Valentine’s Day. Our international group attended an amazing party at Diana’s house, and I even placed the phone order for seven extra large pizzas. The group sang and shared food. I scrolled through the thoughtful “happy Valentine’s Day” GIFs sent to me on WhatsApp. It’s a good thing I’m an optimist. Next year if I’m sick on Valentine’s Day, maybe I’ll have a boyfriend who will run out and buy me ice cream.

If I was a younger me, I might consider a move to Canada, where ice in far Northern landscapes will make way for wide-open opportunities, like farming. Someday, Americans will try to cross the border, only to be beaten back by Canadian Mounties riding electric-powered ATVs. The Disney Corporation will build a new Disneyworld in Juneau.

Those of us who have lived on this beautiful planet for more than a few decades may romanticize the weather of our youth. I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area. It’s easy to remember when summers were bearable and fog drifted most mornings in winter, turning my wavy hair into an embarrassing frizzle. These days it’s rare that I drive through tule fog driving near the river. The past decade has had so many drought years I was beginning to think crisp winter days with no rain is the new normal.

However, if the children of today don’t know any better, they may not notice when seasons don’t quite feel the same.

I’ll never be able to understand what it was like for my great-grandmother, who was nearly 8 years old when the San Francisco earthquake changed lives. She fled the city on a ferry and the displaced people sat in an open field and watched the city burn across the water. They were too shocked in that moment to worry about the future. Her future turned out quite fine.

Sometimes when I visit San Francisco I squint my eyes and try to imagine what the Bay looked like before houses and bridges and planes buzzing overhead. What a beautiful place to be a Native American.

This week we welcomed 19 international teachers from 16 countries to Chico, as part of our International Training Programs. As we traveled north that first day, Northern California was at its most beautiful. “The sky is so blue,” they said. “The grass is so green.” Thank you rain, which washed away the dust and perked up the native plants. Water glistened in shallow pools along Highway 99. I was proud of where I choose to call home. We spent some time at the Gray Lodge Wildlife Area near Gridley. At one point, as happens often, about 1,000 snow geese decided to fly around in a circle. “Look, they are doing that just for us,” one kind teacher said.

Spring is amazing in Northern California. I can’t wait for them to see the tulip magnolia tree in bloom outside of Tehama Hall and the pink almond blossoms.

Divya, of India, was pleasantly vocal with her appreciation. When people gasp and exclaim when they see beauty in the world, it’s a reminder to all within earshot to look that way. “What are those trees?” she asked excitedly. Now, when I see Italian Cypresses I smile, remembering the sound of delight in her voice.

And then it rained. It will rain some more. We’ve been spoiled the past few years when the Fulbright teachers are in town. In 2020, ‘21 and ‘22 there was no fog when we walked across the Golden Gate Bridge. I’m OK with less than beautiful. This group will experience California rain, and we need it.

Welcome rain! Please remain. Someday I may be telling a future generation about when the grass was green and fog rolled off the river into towns like Yuba City and Gridley. Rain brightens the yellow wild mustard and makes for crazy orange splashes of California poppies. I hope a few more generations of our children will be able to say that they remember when …

For as much as I enjoyed the fall leaves this year, one might think I would be melancholy to see the trees bare. Yet walking across the mostly-empty university campus is a treat, even in winter. I noticed the colors in October and November, and now my eyes are keen on how the trees are ready for the great awakening.

On the second floor of my office building, I can see the limbs of the saucer magnolia tree facing Warner Street, the limbs almost scratching against the window. On blustery days the smaller branches sway, holding dozens of fur-covered buds that will soon open with light pink flowers.

I walk behind the health center after parking my car and see the paperwhites, the earliest of “spring blooms.” Common groundsel is ready to flower, and I sometimes stop to yank them, stalling for those few minutes because I’m not quite ready to begin the workday.

Winter is a season when outdoor work is often overlooked. We have the holidays as a distraction, and it’s usually dark when we pull into our driveways after a day earning money. If the weekend is bright, I’ll walk fast past the undone work on my way to the park or that 11-mile drive to Seven Mile Lane.

This week I noticed the roses have been hacked back to less than half their height in the garden with the statue of the three sisters near the lawn at Glenn Hall. As much as I wander around campus, I’ve never caught the gardeners with clippers in their hand, which makes me think the work is done by gnomes.

I pruned my sprawling grapevine and peach tree soon after their leaves shed, but the job on the peach tree might merit another pass with my clippers. I’ve decided to keep the tree at a manageable height, inspired by my friend Betty Ann who has strange looking trees with easy-to-reach fruit. The University of California backyard orchard, https://bit.ly/3vyd8EX, notes that the tallest vertical branches have a lot of leaves, but horizontal branches are “more fruitful.” This is why Betty Ann’s trees look something like a bald man with long, flowing tresses. Branches that bend down will eventually produce less fruit, and should be pruned as well, the helpful pruning instructions explain.

For peach and nectarines, the University of California advises removing 50% of last year’s growth, and 20% for fig, apple, pear, plum and apricot. I’m glad I’m not growing all of those other trees because I don’t feel comfortable on a ladder.

I’m also glad to only have one fruit tree because pruning takes away from my daylight hours at Llano Seco.

The Snow Goose Festival website, https://snowgoosefestival.org, has two webcams in case you’re too busy to go see the birds in person.

Before the days of social media, video game consoles or even printed books, people managed to entertain themselves with the resources they had available.

My dad would sometimes joke about how easy it is to give gifts to young children. A toddler, for example, might open a box containing a new toy and spend as much time playing with the box as he does playing with the toy.

When I visited a small museum in Kyrgyzstan with my friends Dinara and Asel, we saw a display of chuko bones in a wooden tray. (The bones are from the spine of a ram, and painted different colors). Asel recognized the game from her childhood and quickly showed us how it worked (It’s a little like jacks and a little like pick-up sticks). Other close-to-hand resources can be identified for corn husk dolls, footballs made of pig’s bladders and most winter sports involving snow.

If we think of cricket, which is becoming a big deal in the United States, the main resources for the game include Wood, leather and open space — all which were available in England in the 16th Century.

Part of my ancestral lineage leads back to Minnesota, and when my mom moved to the Midwest I got a taste of what those relatives do for fun. Winter blows in across the  mostly flat plains and people get excited about winter sports. Mom and I traveled to her little cabin by one of Minnesota’s 10,000 lakes. We could see our breath as we walked from the front porch, bundled in wool and wearing sensible boots. Our journey was to take a thermos of warm liquid to the man sitting in a wooden box, (not too much different than an outhouse), watching a circle that had been carved in the ice.

Ice fishing.

Not too exciting. Yet, I’ll admit the quiet I felt that day was memorable. Something about cold and white and quiet can do something to your brain in a good way. However, 20 minutes of ice fishing is enough for this California girl.

Another day I tried mom’s cross country skis, which took 40 minutes in preparation and was fun for about 20 minutes. I realized I was exercising and could do this without the skis and poles and mittens. Most children in these icy areas of the country learn to ice skate soon after they can walk, which naturally leads to ice hockey.

Making games with objects nearby, creating sports that use local materials, loving the one you’re with … it all makes sense and points to the human ability to adapt, thrive or at the least be reasonably content in one’s environment.

This all circles back to what we have going on in Chico. People in Chico love to swim in creeks, such as a dip in Butte Creek Canyon and the need to build a concrete pool in lower Bidwell Park. Chico gets unreasonably hot in summer, but the spring wildflowers in spring are amazing. The flat terrain in the northern Sacramento Valley is nice for riding a bike, until it’s too hot. Naturally, when it came time to plan a ridiculously long bicycle event (Wildflower Century ride https://www.wildflowercentury.org), Chico folks chose the last weekend in April, when the landscape is covered in wildflowers. In the fall we enjoy the fall leaves. In winter, we shop at farmers market on Saturdays for beautiful winter veggies, and wait for spring.

The giant tree in Rockefeller Center in New York City? This began as a relatively small tree in 1931, and without any ornaments. Younger generations expect to see ginormous trees in this location every year. Fairly soon, I won’t be surprised if there is a plastic tree, or even a metal tree-shaped frame instead of a live monster tree. The tradition now is that ¾ of folks who opt for an indoor tree choose plastic.

“Grandma, when you were young did people really cut down trees and bring them inside?”

Elf on a shelf has only been around since 2005. However, if you ask a young parent in 2105, she might believe the elf tradition is as old as Santa Clause. Modern Christmas card marketing began in 1915. These days we’re more likely to give someone a Starbucks coffee card than a holiday greeting card.

“Grandma, why did people send cards to each other in the mail at Christmas?”

Grandma of 2035: “Because social media had not been invented and paper was not as expensive.”

If you search many modern traditions, you’ll find that the ideas emerged and/or perpetuated because someone had figured out a way for the idea to earn money:

Blow-up lawn ornaments shaped like Peanuts cartoon characters sold at a big-box store near year. For several hundred dollars you can buy a 13-foot skeleton lawn ornament, and dress him for most holidays.

“Grandma, why do people wear black plastic top hats on New Year’s Eve?”

Grandma: “I don’t think anyone remembers.”

Religious traditions tend to stick around for a long time and continue to have meaning for people. Other traditions leap out of nowhere and disappear just as quickly.

When I poked around the Internet last week I found some traditions I thought were a bit wacky around the world. However, folks in other countries might think it’s odd that millions of Americans turn on video livestreams to watch a 12-foot wide crystal ball drop from a pole. Next, the crowd at the bottom of the ball scatters tons of garbage in a public square while yelling and blowing paper horns.

After reading about other traditions throughout the world, I asked my friends in other countries to share their personal New Years traditions:

(Shared by WhatsApp)

Erica from Peru: “When the clock strikes midnight, people wear new clothes in particular colors. Green is for wealth. Red is for love and yellow (the most popular) is for luck and happiness.”

She said folks also put a handful of dried lentils in their pockets, because the lentils will lead to more money jangling around in your pockets.

Several of our friends from South America said a tradition is to pack a suitcase and carry it around the block. If you want to travel to the beach, pack beach clothes. Warm clothes for the mountains, etc. Orlando in Venezuela said the day is sacred, for thanking God and spending time with family, but also jumping in the ocean to wash away the previous year.

Eli of Burkina Faso, said most people go to mosque or church and ask God for blessings and grace for the new year.

In Chile, people eat 12 green grapes, explained Carla. In Panama, “dolls” are made to look like corrupt politicians, stuffed with fireworks and burned at midnight.

In the recent past, people in Ukraine gathered for fireworks and dancing. Also, there are presents under the New Year Tree.

Many of the international teachers said they stayed home with family, watched fireworks, attended religious services or went to light festivals (think Turtle Bay Garden of Lights, but in the snow, https://www.reddinggardenoflights.org).

The new year is here, and that’s as good a reason as any to celebrate. The fact that we are still stuck by gravity to this planet is a reason to hoot and holler.