A stoating Scottish Hogmanay is just the solution to the midwinter blues. But I’m worried that after three years we’ll have forgotten how to hooly.
This time last year, I was sat scunnered, head-in-hands.
The Omicron variant had burst onto the scene right on top of Christmas. And it stood to scupper the greatest holiday of the year: Hogmanay.
I love New Year’s even mair than the Broons love it.
When I was wee in the village, we’d get fires burning up to the bells, pals would all gather, fireworks would storm the skies.
Then come the bells, all hell would break loose in the form of drunken first-footers.
Folk fae ower the lane would breenge in wi a bottle.
The usually pressed and presentable shirt front of village life would be unbuttoned and wrinkled a wee bit, the sleeves rolled right up.
New Year’s Day was a muckle steak pie fae the oven. And the first few days of January were spent dutifully first-footing friends, neighbours and relations, wishing them all the very best for the coming year.
Pandemic cost us our traditional Hogmanay
I thought these days were great. Better than Christmas.
Christmas to me is a tight strung web of tension, of expensive presents and diplomatic visits to difficult family.
This year, I’m no even bothering. Just heading into a cabin in the woods for a week, to reemerge when it’s all over.
Hogmanay, though, is all about celebrating the great people in life. The ones we love and look to in times of trouble.
You get to be with pals at the bells, as well as the favourites fae the family.
Which is why I was so devastated when Omicron rolled along to turn down the fun
After two years of pandemic, I was lusting after the ceilidhs, the thrills, the door-chapping, the bottles and the camaraderie of the full-fat New Years.
Instead, nightclubs were shut, and pubs returned to table service only.
Some pubs in Dundee chucked aabdy oot at 11pm, because they knew there would be no way to stop all the Happy Hogmanay hugs and kisses that traditionally greet the bells. Sickener.
And now, after a three-year hiatus, I’m worried that the auld Hogmanay might no come back at all.
Traditional Hogmanay was not for the faint-hearted
It was already under threat before Covid.
Even when I was wee, folk in Newbigging were saying the celebrations were a shadow of the ones seen in the 1980s.
I was telt that the Craigton Coach Inn would basically be Bedlam for 40-odd hours as everyone in the wider parish came in for a belt of malt and a belly full of beer.
Apparently there was a waiter there who could do a backflip down a small flight of stairs, and would perform his stunt to massed drunken applause.
I’ve nae idea how true that is, but if you can confirm, please let me know.
Pals fae Dundee who are in their 60s and older have similar stories, of Hilltoon hoolies that would rage on for days. Of folk first-footing 40 flights of tenement stairs.
These days might be away. But I loved the Hogmanay I grew up with and I personally work to preserve it.
I organise a bunkhouse some place rural every year, and get a mob of pals into it.
This year its a couple nights in Ullapool, a midnight ceilidh in the village hall, and a dook and a slab of steak pie each the next day.
I’ll first-foot my way through Moray, the Shire and Angus on my way back doon the road.
But will others be doing the same? Am I being a wee teuchter redneck, practising the old ways as the world moves on?
Now’s the time to bring it all back
I see Edinburgh is letting the fireworks loose, and getting their street party on the go again.
#Edinburgh’s #Hogmanay is back with a bang! 🌟 Discover how you can ring in the bells in style in Scotland’s capital
👉 https://t.co/9VCe2ihEbZ#ForeverEdinburgh #EdHogmanay #TheStoryNeverEnds— Edinburgh (@edinburgh) December 20, 2022
But that feels more of a tourist trap than a legit cultural expression.
There’s a good number of ceilidhs on across Courier Country, which augurs well.
Although they should come with a health warning.
I was at a ceilidh the other night where so few of us minded the dances fae before the pandemic that we were basically making it up as we went along.
No women’s feet were safe fae my stomping size 11s.
But if we’re as clumsy with our traditions as we were at the dancing, and the trajectory of decline in things like first-footing and steak-pie chomping has been accelerated by the pandemic, then it could be a quiet Hogmanay indeed.
Which would be a shame.
It feels like that in these dark months, after a period when pleasure’s been at such a premium, we should be grabbing the chance to be back out in the streets with the pipes and the bottles.
I’ll be there, and hopefully I’ll see you there too.
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