Happy New Year! Happy 2026!

🥳Happy New Year🥳

c.1900
Happy and Prosperous New Year

While four-leaf clovers have been symbols of good luck for centuries (the earliest known written record was in 1620, but it dates to long before that, to ancient Celtic times) pigs represented prosperity in the Victorian age. They doubled their odds of luck by often including four-leaf clovers with the pigs, as here.

1907

Two from 1909

c.1910

"... Auld Acquaintance" is from the an old Scottish folk song, later immortalized by Robert Burns, a Scottish poet.  Thistles are the national flower of Scotland, and the lion rampant (on hind legs, forelegs with claws extented) represents the Kings and Queens of Scotland. 

You may be surprised to see this next postcard (actually a postal card) today and not last week for Christmas. It was sent to me recently from Russia, however it's an older card, c.1970s Soviet Era.  

Religious holidays had been discouraged or outright banned after the 1917 Revolution.  New Year's Eve became the winter holiday with traditions mirroring Christmas customs (decorated trees and cards), but framed as secular and therefore state-approved. This child is eagerly waiting the arrival of, not Santa, but Father Frost, and her tree is not a Christmas tree, but a New Year's tree.

The pre-printed stamp, another New Year's tree, on the postal card further dated it to the Soviet Era. 

Here's hoping some good luck pigs come your way, and mine, this year!