Happy Hogmanay

The Scots would say that no-one knows how to celebrate the new year as well as they do. And, having spent a couple of New Year's Eves in Edinburgh, I'm not going to argue the point.

A large part of the celebration of course is a wee (or not so wee) dram of fine whisky. A typical menu could be:    
* Scotch pancakes with smoked salmon and horseradish crème fraîche    
* Lamb stew with Stornoway black pudding crust    
* Rumbledethumps    
* Seven-cup pudding with butterscotch sauce

I am not from Scotland, I'm from Yorkshire, a little to the south, but the Scottish tradition of first footing was well-established in our house. The 'first foot', the first person to step into a house in the new year should be tall, dark-haired and should bring a gift into the household.

The gift need not have any monetary value but should be symbolic of something that would benefit the household for the rest of the year, for example, a loaf of bread to ensure that there would always be food on the table. And under no circumstances should the first footer be carrying anything that could be construed as a weapon (a penknife, for example) as this would bring a year of violence to the household. Of course, such an important first visitor could not be left to chance.

Leave it to chance and the first visitor to the household could be a short blond carrying no gift, which would do the household no good at all, if not establish an atmosphere of poverty. So after 'the bells', the stroke of midnight, my mother would push the tallest, darkest-haired person at the party out into the snow, handing him a lump of coal carefully wrapped in a paper bag. This chap then had to knock on the door, be allowed to enter and then he had to present the coal to the lady of the house (my mother, of course, who had thrust the piece of coal into his hand just a few minutes before...)

But once these niceties had been observed, and the family assured of a warm household thanks to the lump of coal, the revelries could continue. The lump of coal would go back into its paper bag to preserve the cleanliness of the clothing of next year's first footer. What a bizarre, illogical ritual! And yet somehow, I always make sure that the first person to enter my house in the new year is tall and dark....