Hogmanay is the name given to the Scottish celebrations over the New Year period. Thousands of people across Scotland celebrate Hogmanay by taking to the streets and having huge parties. In some areas these parties are limited to those who live locally, but in Glasgow and Edinburgh these have become something even bigger and are now ticketed festivals with celebrations lasting from early evening on New Years Eve through till the early hours of New Years Day.



Midnight and the welcoming in of the New Year is the most important part of the festival, and with a loan piper playing just before midnight, and then the chimes as the clock strikes the hour, lots of kissing, and hoorays and then everyone joining in together to sing Auld Lang Syne followed by more kissing and partying.

Hogmanay has it's roots waaaay back in history in the practice of sun and fire worship during the winter. From this came Saturnalia which was a Roman winter festival, and then followed Yule which was brought by the Vikings, and which became the 12 days of Christmas. The winter festival vanished (or went ?underground?) during the reformation and the years following it, re-emerging at the end of the 17th Century since which it's evolved into it's modern day existance and the large scale celebration that it is now. The first large scale hogmanay event in Edinburgh was the Summit in the City in 1992 when Edinburgh hosted the European Union Heads of state conference when the Hogmanay festival was so successful that other cities around Scotland also decided to host similar events for their millennium festivities.

Fire and flames are a part of the hogmanay celebrations in the form of a torch parade in Edinburgh, this is because fire is said to be bringing the light of knowledge from one year into the next. It is also said that by carrying forward a flame of light, you are also burning away the old to make space for the new, and in this way you leave behind anything bad from the previous year, so you can start the New Year afresh.

First footing is a part of the celebration too in many parts of Scotland, and it is said that if a tall dark stranger appears at your door with a piece of coal for your fire, a cake or a coin, your new year will be a prosperous one. In exchange it's tradition for you to offer him food, whiskey or wine. For the most part these days, friends and family will normally get a group of men together and do a tour of each others houses with one of the households providing a meal for the group. In some places ?hogmanays? are exchanged just after midnight as well these are small gifts given between friends and family members in a similar way to Christmas gifts, but these are given as a gift of good luck through the new year.