New Years Traditions

[Annpan]

Just thinking about our Hogmany traditions and I was unsure if people around the world do the same things...

In Scotland (or at least where I grew up) it is traditional to clean your house thoroughly for 'The Bells' - you have to have a clean house to see the new year in, symbolic of how your house will be for the rest of the year. This year my house is so horrid I can't even bear thinking about it, but I have cleaned the main living areas and emptied all the bins. - I usually do most of the cleaning and tidying after 10pm

Just before midnight we open the windows to let the old year out and the new year in, you have a drink in your hand for 'the bells' and Auld Lang Syne is sung at the end of the night (rather than right at the bells like everyone on TV seems to do)

Sometimes we might go 'first-footing' (being someones first visitor of the year) straight after the bells but usually not till the next day. We always take shortbread (I think it ought to be coal, but I grew up in the city there wasn't a lot of coal about)

For dinner on New Years Day we always have steak pie (not steak and kidney) with puff pastry.


It has also become traditional for me and OH to sit in and be nice and cosy and think about all the poor souls freezing their asses off in the streets of Glasgow and Edinburgh - especially at 3am when there are no taxis. At least it is dry tonight though.


So what do you all do?

[StripyPixieSocks]

Usually go to bed if I'm completely honest but my OH loves New Year so we always stay up and watch DVD's or some such usually while alcohol is being consumed quite rapidly!

I don't think any of our family have ever celebrated it, I can remember going to one party in all my years and that was when I was about 12!

Don't really 'get' the excitement to be honest

[The Riff-Raff Element]

In France the révillion de St Sylvestre is a big deal with dinner commencing around 10pm and running through half a dozen courses (oysters, fruits de mer, foie gras, tournados rossini, cheese and pud) plus about a gallon of wine and dancing. Onion soup is served around 6am and there follows the traditional breathelysing of the homebound partygoers by the fine (if slightly sulky) men & women of the gendarmerie national.

Our local village do is €60 per head, which is one good reason not to go, but also I have three children one of whom is a toddler, so I am both too old and too knackered to be buggering around with that kind of malarky.

I'll be abed afore midnight.

[Mr and Mrs luvpie]

we haven't got any traditions yet about New Year, last year I was in hospital having had master luvpie that morning so saw the new year in reading a book while he slept, and this year having got up with the birthday boy at 4.30 had planned to go to bed early till the eldest two (7 & 8) decided that they wanted to see the enw year in, of course thinking that they would never manage it we agreed to let them try, with our money being on having to carry them to bed at 9, however, they are still wide awake and we are know considering telling them what they need to turn off and which which doors to shut so that we can go to bed and leave them to it

Whatever you do/did we hope that you enjoyed your evening and wish you all the best for 2009

[red]

my parents, having children (ie me!) always used to have a party for new years eve (no need for babysitters), which were riotous. Course looking back they were younger then I am now... So we always celebrated new years eve, we always sang auld langs at midnight.. along with the silly cross armed circle dance... and my mum would make haggis. Not sure what the haggis was doing there.. us being from Devon and all.. but I grew up thinking it was normal.

as a teenager, i discovered the small town i lived in had a really good new years eve thing goign on, basically a pub crawl, then everyone met in teh square and you would kiss as many people as you could.. a lot fo people you knew, and a lot you didn't.

as an adult with a kid, and not inclined to throw a party, its hardler to celebrate - but we have always seen the new year in. If nothing else the village gathers in the centre for a countdown, a song and lots of hugging.. so we can just pop out to that.

but laterly we have met with friends and/or family, had a take away, drank a tad too much, played board games, then countdown..sing.. hugs and kisses...

and thats what we did tonight.

[Helsbells]

The only tradition that I have followed every sinlge year since I was about 17 is to drink some form of alcoholic beverage!!
Have done tonight woooooo!!

[Flo]

There was only one set of fireworks last night locally which is unusual and a lot of houses looked dark so they were either in bed or down the pub which is the local tradition. I go to bed at the usual time and get up at the usual time as usual - it was the growing up on a farm and knowing that there were still stock rounds that bred out learning any New Year's Eve late night or alcoholic traditions.

Street outside is very quiet this morning so perhaps there were some household celebrations - that or it's too cold and too early and too grey to go for a bracing New Year's Day walk!

[Milims]

We spent the day cleaning the house and preparing for a party. It was just us and a couple of friends with their kids - but we had a blast! My friend and I shared the catering - all pretty easy stuff but it makes for a good party. The kids played twister - her 5 year old astounded me with his command of right and left - I still have to think about it even now! The kids stayed up until after midnight and were as good as gold. We had a bonfire and little fireworks and toasted marshmallows in the garden and toasted the New year with a bottle of Cava, which my other friend brought with her. It was a gift from her mum with strict instructions that it had to be drunk with friends on a special occasion - I was honoured! After midnight my step son was in great demand as a first foot - he's suddenly become tall dark and handsom! All in all a good way to say good riddance to the poopy old year and start the new one with a smile. I'm looking forward to this year

A Happy and Prosperous New Year to you All!

[eccentric_emma]

we went to a masquerade ball at a local hotel! brilliant stuff. no real traditions for us round here apart from a big sloppy kiss at midnight! i can never remember the words to auld lang syne so that rarely gets sung.

[growingthings]

As youngest is still pretty little (8months) we stopped in but in our family we have always, for several generations now, at the chiming of the new year got the oldest person in the house to open the back door and kick out the old year and all the rubbish that it represents, and once that is done the youngest (with a bit of help in our house!) opens the front door and welcomes the new year in and once the house has been suitably flushed through with the new year you can shut the doors and stop freezing!

If there are more than just us we also get friends to go out and ring bells but I think that that has more to do with the fact that we like to remind the pub next door that not everyone is steaming drunk and now the new year has been seen in can they all shut up and go home please!

It was a majorly quiet one for us as everyone has been poorly - not the best start for the new year, but at least it means that things should improve from here on in.

Lorna x

[Andy Hamilton]

Yep I think the only tradition I have ever taken part in since about 14 was to drink too much.

I was invited to a few parties this year and decided that I did not really fancy it, yep feeling a bit humbug. In the end I went to bed at 11.50 as some sort of protest against forced jollity. I laid their whilst fireworks went off all around me and was moaning in my head for a bit. Then I thought hang on this is the one day of the year that I should not be so miserable about other people making noise, I laughed to myself a little at my grumpiness and fell asleep.

In the morning I had set my alarm to get up before the sun so that I could see the first sun rise of 2009. It was overcast and so I saw nothing. It was good to get up early and I had already said to myself that I would do what is apparently traditional in South Korea, that is to have a very productive day. I did exactly that and had done more than a days worth of stuff by 2pm. I then met up with two friends from my local cafe in a different cafe (believe me this is a big thing, the first time in 2 years we have all met outside that cafe). In short I had a bit of a crappy new years eve but a really positive new years day. Might make it a tradition.

[pumpy]

'fraid we were in bed by 10.30, as we were both laid low by the dreaded lurgy, (on top of a couple of traumatic weeks). But normally we would have been out with all the other assorted barmpots, having a silly-buggers night out, probably talking absolute drivel & making resolutions that we don't have a cat-in-hells chance of keeping!!!