Happy New Year! H and I celebrated New Year’s Eve in our own apartment. We wanted to start a tradition. Since that was our first New Year’s celebration as husband and wife, we decided to celebrate it alone. We shopped for our Media Noche in the afternoon, watched a DVD of “Lord of the Rings: Two Towers” in the early evening. When it was around 10pm, we started cooking our midnight feast. It was a very simple midnight dinner – we had pasta (our first attempt at making spaghetti — wifely tip: when the sauce gets too thin, add tomato catsup), corned beef (our favorite), garlic bread (I burnt the toast, as usual!), chestnuts, grapes, queso de bola, and Coca-Cola. At 11:30pm, we lit our Prosperity Candles given by my mom-in-law. Prosperity candles are a great idea for a Christmas present next year! They come in a set of 7; each candle has a different color and has a specific meaning. For example, a pink candle means love, green=money, red=health, orange=career, purple=spiritual growth, blue=peace, yellow=intelligence. The spirit behind the candles is this: you light them all at 11:30. At exactly 12 midnight (New Year’s eve!), you put them out. Then you arrange the candles from the shortest to the tallest. The candle that burnt the fastest (the shortest one) is the FIRST fortune of yours that will be granted in the new year. The next short one is the second fortune that will be granted, and so on and so forth.
Our fortunes that will be granted in 2004 (per the Prosperity Candles) in chronological order are as follows: 1) Love, 2) Money, 3) Spiritual Growth, 4)Career, 5) Health, 6) Intelligence, 7) Peace. 
Not bad!
As my MIL said, maybe this year will be blessed with a baby because love was the #1 fortune. Let’s wait and see! Happy New Year everyone!
Hi! I'm Toni Tiu,
and I've been blogging at
at Wifely Steps since 2003. This started as a blog to help newly weds adjust to married life. It has evolved into a home and parenting blog. I write about things close to my heart -- good eats, good reads, family, marriage, and the little things that make everyday happy.