How did making Japanese okonomiyaki become a New Year's tradition?

 Waaaaaaay back in 2010 when we were still in grad school, my husband met a Japanese man at church who came to the area on business. Since my husband lived in Japan as a missionary for two years and is fluent, we invited him over for dinner after the services. I made homemade pizza which was fast and easy for me to make and fed a lot. 

Then my husband offered to take him to the train station so he could catch his flight. (He offered to take him all the way to the airport, but the man insisted on taking the train--public transportation is much more common in Japan and it wasn't much of a hassle to taketh train to the airport and our family had taken it many times.)

During dinner, the man casually asked my husband what he missed as food from Japan. My husband listed off a few things including Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki. The Osaka-style was more of a pancake where it's prepared omelet-style of throwing everything into a bowl and then cooking it. Hiroshima-style was more like layers--first a pancake of seasoned flour, then eggs, then cabbage, then soba noodles, and bacon all patted together in a nice little strata of yumminess! Honestly, we didn't think much of it until the end of the year, we got a package on our doorstep filled with Japanese treats and okonomiyaki flour, all the seasoning and sauces which we couldn't readily get here in the US! We were delighted! Everything else, the eggs, the noodles, the bacon and cabbage, we could get here! So we made up a batch and ate it for New Year's Day. Yum!