Blogging from A to Z Challenge: H is for Hogmanay

I’m in the Blogging from A to Z Challenge for the month of April.  I need your help!  To meet this challenge, I’ll be doing one post a day, working through the alphabet.

Your job is to comment and keep me motivated!  Let me know you’re out there and following along.  Can she make it?  Will she?  Of course she will!  With you as my cheering section, I won’t be stumped by J or Q or even X.

So without further ado, here is today’s post.

H is for Hogmanay, the Scottish celebration of the New Year.  Besides cleaning the house and hearth to start the new year fresh, one of my favorite traditions is the one called “First Footer.”

The first visitor on January first is called the First Footer.  It’s considered good luck if that person is male, dark haired, and arrives bearing gifts – coal or peat, shortbread and whisky.  

We adopted this practice from a Scottish neighbor years ago.  We’d celebrate New Year’s with a progressive dinner around the neighborhood (so no one had to drive anywhere). Appetizers at one house, dinner at another, dessert at a third, and “Bells” at the last – the champagne and whisky part of the evening.

 At five minutes to midnight, the tallest, darkest-haired, male neighbor got thrown out into the cold.  Occasionally,w e’d remember to give him a glass of whisky to warm him while he waited, especially if it was snowing.  Once the ball came down in Times Square, we’d let him back in and the party would continue, good luck having been bestowed on the home hosting “Bells.”

What New Year’s traditions do you celebrate?

Interested in finding the other nearly 2000 blogs participating in the Blogging from A to Z Challenge?  Click on the title, then scroll down to find the sign-up list.