New Year

Tonight I’ll be the despair of all my Scottish ancestors. I’ll be going to my bed and sleeping the old year out and the new year in. I won’t even stay up to hear the bells and drink the toast to welcome the new year. When you’re the only one in the house, there seems little point. Not like the old days when we might go on the razzle for days on end.

Why should it matter? Well, in Scotland, Hogmanay and New Year have always been the biggest celebration. Far bigger than Christmas. In fact, Christmas was never an official holiday in Scotland until about 1958. It was only after that date Scots were allowed a day off work at Christmas and that has built up over the intervening years to be the same as the English holidays, two official days. But New Year has always had its full quota of holidays.

When I was a child, everyone worked on Christmas Day, but like most other children in Britain, Santa did come on Christmas Eve and we hung our stockings up, hoping for them to be filled. But I recall some children who did this at New Year, particularly if their parents were from the older generation.

I suppose the situation in Scotland was a hangover from the Scottish Protestant Reformation, John Knox and all that jazz. In fact, Christmas was banned in the sixteenth century due to the views of influential reformers that it was a Popish or Catholic feast.

So, back to Hogmanay and the New Year, the biggest Scottish celebration when everyone celebrates with a dram. Being Scots, alcohol and celebration go hand in hand.

It was certainly a riotous time when I was in my teens.