Your Seasonal Celebrations and Traditions Over the Years?

[Peter Crowe]

I celebrate Thanksgiving, since being married to an American (even when we lived in Scotland). I celebrate Christmas and the New Year. I also celebrate Burns Night.

I must be honest I have never celebrated St. Andrew's day, and when I lived in Scotland nobody I knew did either.

The biggest change in how something is celebrated in my lifetime has been the New Year. In my family and many others (in Scotland) no-one celebrated Hogmonay, that was a day of preparation for the Bells (because you celebrate the New Year coming in, not the old one that is over) when we had our first toast before going out first-footing and/or receiving a first foot and other visitors (a first foot must be male, preferably tall and dark) for anything between a couple of hours, and for some heroes I've known more than 24 hours. Even as quite young children we would go to bed early on Hogmonay evening and be woken at about 11pm put through a quick bath and dressed in our best clothes (usually my kilt) for the Bells, when my sister would get a babycham and I would have a glass of sweet (alcoholic) cider both diluted with lemonade (which in the UK is something akin to sprite or 7Up).

Trying to maintain the old Scottish customs of New Year was becoming more difficult in Scotland (due to the increasing dominance of Anglo-American media and cultural attrition) before I left, and nigh on impossible living in the United States.

I do lament the demise of the traditional Scots celebration of New Year, but it has been in decline throughout my life.