The night Scotland welcomes the world
Hogmanay — Scotland's New Year celebration — is the biggest and most distinctive festival in the Scottish calendar. While much of the world treats New Year's Eve as an afterthought to Christmas, in Scotland Hogmanay has traditionally been the main winter celebration, and its traditions run deep into Scottish culture and identity.
The origins of Hogmanay are debated. The word itself may derive from the Norman French hoguinané or from the Gaelic oge maidne (new morning). The festival has roots in the Norse celebration of the winter solstice — the Vikings' Yule — and in older Celtic traditions marking the turn of the year. In Scotland, where the Protestant Reformation suppressed Christmas celebrations for over 400 years (Christmas Day was not a public holiday in Scotland until 1958), Hogmanay became the principal winter festival by default.
The tradition of first-footing — being the first person to cross a threshold after midnight — is distinctively Scottish. The ideal first-footer is a tall, dark-haired man carrying symbolic gifts: a lump of coal (for warmth), shortbread (for food), salt (for flavour), and a bottle of whisky (for good cheer). A fair-haired first-footer was considered unlucky, a superstition that may date from the Viking age, when a blond stranger at the door was more likely to be a raider than a friend. The first-footer should enter by the front door and leave by the back, carrying the old year's troubles away.
Edinburgh's Hogmanay celebration is now one of the largest New Year festivals in the world, drawing tens of thousands of visitors to a three-day programme of concerts, ceilidhs, torchlight processions, and the famous street party on Princes Street. But Hogmanay is celebrated in communities across Scotland, from the Borders to Shetland. The Stonehaven Fireball Ceremony, where locals swing balls of fire through the streets, and the Loony Dook — a New Year's Day swim in the Firth of Forth — are among the most spectacular local traditions. And at midnight, wherever Scots gather, the words of Robert Burns ring out: "Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind..."