Later, when I discovered the joys of cheap cider and teenage make-out sessions, New Year’s Eve acquired little more narrative momentum. I spent several New Year’s in this fashion at Waihi Beach, hiding my illicit cans from the patrolling policemen, stumbling and giggling around bonfires and somehow wrangling a lift home so my midnight activities wouldn’t raise the ire of my father the following morning.
The most momentous New Year’s Eve, however, was the first one I spent in Scotland. I was 20 years old and living abroad for the first time in my life. My brother had died only a few months earlier, and I was on a roller-coaster of grief and denial, and drinking to numb the pain.
But I had just spent a calming, loving Christmas with my new friend Fidra and her family, and my heart was beginning to heal. New Year’s Eve was an opportunity to really let loose after the stress of the preceding few months.
I threw myself into the Hogmanay celebrations with great gusto, bellowing Auld Lang Syne at the top of my lungs, admiring the Princes St fireworks from North Bridge, and kissing at least four young men. It was marvellous, although my hangover the following day wasn’t.
The Scots do New Year’s well. As a child, I would pore over my father’s Broons and Oor Wullie annuals, wishing I could join in on the Hogmanay traditions of first footing — visiting neighbours with gifts of coal, shortbread and whisky. I enjoyed the notion Hogmanay was more joyous and tactile than New Year’s Eve elsewhere — the Broons and Oor Wullie always seemed to end the night singing with strangers, counting down the seconds with arms linked together, a real celebration of community.
Hogmanay has deep roots in the past. Although the name likely originates from Old French or Norse influences, the celebration itself is a layering of older traditions: pre-Christian solstice rites, Viking fire symbolism and medieval calendar customs.
In Scotland, winter is long and light is scarce — for centuries, the fire, joy and noise of Hogmanay has provided an opportunity to celebrate themes of survival, renewal and community. Indeed, for centuries, Hogmanay mattered more than Christmas in Scotland, particularly after the Reformation discouraged festive observance of Christmas itself.
Hogmanay absorbed what Christmas lost, becoming an opportunity for feasting, hospitality, settling debts and restoring moral order. If the year was a mess, Hogmanay was your chance to tidy it up.
There are many customs associated with Hogmanay. Perhaps the most famous national custom is the practice of first-footing, which begins immediately after midnight.
This tradition involves being the first person to cross the threshold of a friend or neighbour, usually with a symbolic gift such as salt, coal, shortbread, whisky or a black bun. Traditionally, tall, dark-haired men are preferred as the first-foot — alas, I have never been visited by such a guest, but hopefully I will in the future.
This may go on throughout the early morning hours and into the next day (although modern days see people visiting houses well into the middle of January). The first-foot is supposed to set the luck for the rest of the year.
Then there are marvellous local Hogmanay customs, such as the fireball swinging that takes place in Stonehaven, Aberdeenshire. Here, civic enthusiasm takes a more combustible form.
Locals construct formidable "balls" of chicken wire, stuffed full of newspaper, sticks, rags and whatever dry flammable materials they can lay their hands on, until they reach a diameter of roughly 60cm. Each ball is then attached to about 90cm of wire, chain or nonflammable rope.
To the tolling of the Old Town House bells as midnight strikes, the balls are set alight and the revellers set off up the High Street from the Mercat Cross to the Cannon and back, merrily swinging the burning balls around their heads as they go, with only a passing nod to health and safety. At the end of the ceremony, fireballs still burning are cast into the harbour.
Another theatrical Highland custom is saining (from the Scots for "protecting" or "blessing").
As the first light dawns on New Year’s morning, the householder would collect "magic water" from a "dead and living ford": a river crossing used by both the living and the dead, and therefore helpfully charged with symbolic potency. This water was solemnly sprinkled through every room, over the beds and over each of the house’s inhabitants, whether they wanted an impromptu shower or not.
Following this, the house was sealed tight, and branches of juniper set alight and carried through home and byre alike. Smoke was allowed to billow and choke until the occupants were sneezing, coughing and quite unmistakably purified.
Only then were doors and windows flung open to admit the sharp, cleansing air of the new year. At this point, the woman of the house would administer a "restorative" from the whisky bottle, and the household would sit down to its New Year breakfast — cleansed, blessed and, one certainly hopes, faintly revived.
Modern Hogmanay is a rather slick affair in Edinburgh — celebrations are ticketed, televised and choreographed by drones rather than bonfires. While the kitchen parties and tenement stairwell sing-alongs haven’t vanished, they now exist alongside global spectacle.
It’s tempting to lament this, to accuse modern Hogmanay of losing something essential. But Hogmanay has never been static; it has always responded to social needs, and has grown and expanded with time and influence.
As for me, I’m not entirely sure what this New Year’s Eve will hold. I’ll be back in Waihi, but I suspect I’ve aged out of my former teenage escapades. Perhaps I’ll spend New Year’s quietly with family — some sparklers, Auld Lang Syne and a (sober) midnight swim in the river will suffice.
Whatever your plans are for this New Year’s, I hope you have a marvellous time. I hope you welcome the new year with your loved ones — I hope you are kissed and hugged and reminded of how important you are, and how much the future holds. Happy New Year.
— Jean Balchin is an ODT columnist who has started a new life in Edinburgh.
