The Tolleys believed that the first person to say Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit on the first of the month would receive good luck that month. As is the Tolley way, this usually involved yelling loudly throughout the house and at times muting your brother till you shouted your rabbits directly into his ear. Everybody did it, including our next door neighbors, the Wallows. In fact, Kathy Wallow Murdoch says that her family still wishes for rabbit luck every month.
Nobody knows how this superstition started in our family. It would not surprise me to learn it was something we made up, like the star fork. Grandma and Grandpa seem to remember hearing about it years ago on WGN radio's Wally Philips show.
Unlike the star fork, it turns out that there really is such a thing as rabbit luck. According to Wikipedia, the exact origin of this European superstition remains unknown, but the first noted use was by children in 1909.
There are several variants to the ritual, but they all involve saying "rabbit" the first thing in the morning on the first of the month. It also seems that this luck can be obtained by anyone uttering the magic words. Nowhere in my research did I find reference to a monthly contest between screaming siblings. And nothing about punching each other, either.
So just when I'm thinking that our family is a little weird, it turns out that we are not alone. We weren't even first.
Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit
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