New Year’s Day was the day for gift-giving

By Jim Bradshaw
jhbradshaw@bellsouth.net

n the old days, New Year’s Day, not Christmas, was the time when gifts were exchanged in French Louisiana. It was the day for family reunions and the time when le bon St. Nicolas brought good children les étrennes.

The word and the celebration on New Years hearken to Roman times and the celebration of the Kalends, a day when the Romans exchanged good wishes for health and prosperity, gave presents to friends and children, and made donations to the poor.

In the earliest celebrations, the presents included boughs from the groves of the goddess Strenia. She was the goddess of strength and endurance and the greenery was meant to bring good health to those who received them. These boughs were called strenae, and became in French étrennes.

In Acadiana, the traditional greetings often ended with the phrase “and Paradise to the end of your days,” which was a literal translation of the French New Year wish between friends and family for a bonne année, bonne santé, et paradis à la fin de vos jours.

For south Louisiana Cajuns, New Year's day used to be a time for visiting from house to house to wish bonne année.

A traditional French Creole song by Canray Fontenot wishes:

Bonjour bonne année, belle heureuse année.

Heureuse année que je souaite à tous.

Bonjour bonne année, madam.

In an old anonymous memoir written about 1900, we are told that “people who have long been enemies [seized] the opportunity which the day presents to be reconciled and to wish others good fortune and prosperity. A young man who wishes to marry often asks his sweetheart's parents for permission to marry.”

Celebration of le jour de l’an, “the day of the year,” started the night before with firecrackers and Roman candles and shotguns fired into the night. The ritual comes from the ancient belief that loud noises will drive away evil spirits. So it became custom to kick off the new year by making as much noise as we can.

Some Cajuns remember that ’tit homme janvier (some call him bonhomme janvier), a white-bearded bearer of good tiding, would sometimes pass overnight and leave fruit and nuts in the children’s shoes and stockings.

The day itself began with early morning Mass, followed by a country breakfast that included biscuits and butter, boudin, hogshead cheese and café au lait.

Popcorn balls were made to eat throughout the day, leading up to a big feast of traditional foods.

In wealthier households, the table for the main meal was loaded with an assortment that could include roast suckling pig, chaudin (stuffed stomach of a young hog), baked chickens and ducks, ham, rice dressing, “store-bought” bread, home-churned butter, winter vegetables, baked sweet potatoes, and more.

Wine was served, of course, and, at the end a demitasse of pure black coffee made from home-roasted beans.

For dessert there was ambrosia and an assortment of cakes, as well as syrupy pecan pralines.

There were no bowl games in those days so the feast was followed by a tradition still appropriate to this day: a good nap.