what are your hogmanay traditions?

[madmacs]

Stuck in a very rural part of the midwest, new year tends to pass largely unoticed nowadays, or maybe I'm just getting old...

The NE Scotland traditons for me generally involved heading to the pub at about 7pm, several hours drinking until walking down to the harbour to get their about 11:30 (this tended to involve passing more pubs, and well...), the bakers tended to open up and make a killing selling hot butteries, pies, soup etc to the massed throng...

Come midnight the fireballs procession started down the high street...

http://stonehavenfireballs.co.uk/about

For more details... Of course when I was there the safety barriers werent there and it was a case of dodging the flames as you tried to cross the street to say happy new year to friends on the other side of the street.

Of you fancy watching, there's a webcam set up on the clock tower that tibes a prime vantage point...

http://stonehavenfireballs.co.uk/firecam

After that it was a cas of onto the first footing... The first foot was the first person to cross the threshold after midnight, and tradition has it that if it's a tall, dark, handsome, stranger, (having 3 out of 4 does make you popular all along the walk home) you'd have good luck for the coming year

The walk home tended to involve a "lets go here next" type of affair with pretty much any house with lights on having an open door and a welcoming hearth... All the more so if you had the traditional lump of coal and a bottle if something strong (about the only time I had whisky, well that and another bottle of something else... ) Needless to say the group of merry makers got smaller and smaller as people peeled off at their destinations...

Eventual getting home time tended to be something between 5am and 10am, just in time for a nice fried breakfast, or possibly ANOTHER fried breakfast as the case may have been...

A couple of hours kip, and time for new years day lunch, followed by the big new years day movie on terrestrial tv (this was in the days of only 4 tv channels of course, waaaaay before satellite)

So what traditions do/did you have?

Oh and number of kilts you were likely to encounter... 1or 2... People didnt really like flames near their nice wool kilts... The 1 or 2 would likely have been at parties in some of the hotels...

[pascs]

Pretty similar as I'm from the NE too. Usually headed out first to a friends house for a few drinks, then onto a pub or two and depending on the 'talent' in the pubs either stay there till midnight or head back towards friends houses, stopping wherever there was a light on or people milling around. Always a great night with a lot of handshaking and kissing

Never made it down to Stoney for the fireballs though

[Rab]

Usually out to the pub until shuting time, then back to someones house for a party.
New years day was always football followed by steak pie.
Things are a bit more quiet these days, since my little girl came along, but i've a fridge full of beers and am looking forward to watching " only an excuse" on the telly.

[robthehiker]

We're having 24 or so people over for an afternoon of haggis, meat pies, tatties, neeps, shortbread, cheese etc. I expect to crack a bottle of Oban (or two).

[Tartan Tess]

I always have a basket with a bit of food, wood, coin and any other things I can think of for a good start of the New Year. I leave it ouside the door and with a string pull it across the threshold after midnight. Can't leave it out too long before or it will freeze or a fox or Fischer will investigate.
Also black eyes peas have to be with the first meal of the new year.

[cessna152towser]

I used to bring in the new year at a village hall ceilidh. These have largely died out here in Scotland nowadays. A lot of village hall supper events fell by the wayside after an e-coli outbreak following a Burns Supper about ten years ago.
As with the past few years I'll sit up till just after midnight and watch the BBC Hogmanay show on television.
As New Year's Day falls on a Sunday this year I will go to church in the morning.
Traditionally steak pie and roast potatoes is on my New Year's Day lunch menu.