Book of Days

SIXTH DAY of CHRISTMAS
New Year’s Eve, Hogmanay, First Footing

The old year now away is fled, the new year it is entered. In our journey through the Twelve Days of Christmas we come now to the last of those in the old year. The balance will be in the new, and in this way, Christmastide bridges past and future: Twelve days outside ordinary time with one foot in the year that’s dying and one foot in the year that’s being born. We come now to January, the month the Romans named for Janus, the god with two faces who looks both back on the past and forward to the future.

And while there is much to tell about the traditions of New Year’s Eve, I don’t think I can write about them any better this year than I did last year. The hour is late and a wiser man probably would have these things written for you well in advance… but I have never been known for my wisdom, and while I should have been writing, I’m afraid Seth and I have been baking lace cookies and drinking a bottle of home brewed Convivio Stout. The stout was good, the lace cookies sublime, and here is last year’s chapter for you to get reacquainted with. And I’m serious about the invitation at the end. Here we go:

The New Year’s Eves I remember as a child were for the most part already emptied of the traditions of the Old World. New Year’s Eve usually was celebrated with all the aunts and uncles and cousins and grandparents at either our house or at Aunt Mary and Uncle Phil’s house, and there would usually be a very large Italian hero, perhaps six feet long, and there were potato chips and Guy Lombardo and his orchestra would be on TV playing “Auld Lange Syne” at precisely the right moment. Guy Lombardo gave way eventually to Dick Clark and Dick Clark eventually to who knows who now. Gathering around the TV is, I’m certain, my least favorite part of New Year’s Eve, but it has always been thus in my family, and so when we gather, this is what we do.

In earlier days, Dad says, Grandma Cutrone would come round through the crowd and make sure everyone ate a spoonful of lentils and a dozen grapes at midnight on New Year’s Eve, and this, to me, is more like it. Who needs to watch a glittery dropping ball on TV when you have more interesting customs like a spoonful of lentils and a handful of grapes? The lentils are an old Italian ritual. Each little lentil symbolizes a coin, so the idea is eat lots of lentils, gather lots of riches in the new year. Capo d’anno, as the Italians call New Year’s, is all about good fortune ahead and also about clearing out the dross: All over Italy, old unwanted things are tossed out of windows at the stroke of midnight. It is not a night for midnight strolls, for all manner of items are tossed out of windows, even really big things like appliances. To have an old dishwasher fall toward you from a second floor window is something you’ll want to avoid. Best to stay indoors with the revelers in this case.

Grandma Cutrone is long gone and so are the lentils for New Year’s Eve in my family, but on my mother’s side, there the tradition was for homemade zeppole: fried dough, essentially, but the dough is enriched with eggs and this is the only night each year that we do this. The zeppole are dusted in confectioners’ sugar or drizzled with honey for a sweet year ahead. So tonight there will for sure be zeppole. And still at midnight for each person a dozen grapes, one for each month of the year, and a glass of champagne to toast the new year properly.

Scotland is perhaps the place where the new year rings in the loudest, for New Year’s is the height of the Christmas season there, bigger perhaps than even Christmas itself. The celebration there is known as Hogmanay, which is believed to to be derived from the French au gui menez, “lead to the mistletoe,” and this suggests a very ancient and pre-Christian derivation of most Hogmanay traditions, for it leads directly back to the Celtic druids and the mistletoe that was sacred to their ceremonies. First Footing is an aspect of Hogmanay that feels particularly like a magic spell: The first person to step across the threshold of the front doorway after midnight is this First Footer, and it is hoped that this person would be a red- or dark-haired man carrying whisky or mistletoe or, in some cases, bread, salt and coal. In this case he would kiss all the women and shake the hands of all the men before placing the coal on the fire and the bread and salt on the table and then he’d kiss all the women and shake hands with all the men once more on his way out. A ritual like this goes not without a bit of preplanning, but, as with most rituals, it’s got to be done right if the magic is to work. The goal here is prosperity and good luck, much like the lentils and grapes of Italy… but the lentils and grapes seem less complicated!

Traditions for this night vary across the globe, and we’d love to hear about yours, so please do share them. And may peace, prosperity and good luck be yours and ours in the new year. Good things to us all: good health, good spirit, creativity and wealth. Happy New Year.

Image: Father Time and Baby New Year from Frolic & Fun, 1897. [Public domain] via Wikimedia Commons.

SIXTH DAY of CHRISTMAS:
New Year’s Eve, Hogmanay, First Footing

Today we come to the last day of the year and the Sixth Day of Christmas. Half of these Twelve Days fall in the old year and half in the new; in this way Christmastide, these days outside ordinary time, both close and open each year as December gives way to January, a month the Romans named for Janus, the god who looks both back on the past and forward to the future.

The New Year’s Eves I remember as a child were for the most part already emptied of the traditions of the Old World. New Year’s Eve usually was celebrated with all the aunts and uncles and cousins and grandparents at either our house or at Aunt Mary and Uncle Phil’s house, and there would usually be a very large Italian hero, perhaps six feet long, and there were potato chips and Guy Lombardo and his orchestra would be on TV playing “Auld Lange Syne” at precisely the right moment.

Guy Lombardo gave way eventually to Dick Clark and Dick Clark eventually to who knows who now. Gathering around the TV is, I’m certain, my least favorite part of New Year’s Eve, but it has always been thus in my family, and so when we gather, this is what we do.

In earlier days, Dad says, Grandma Cutrone would come round through the crowd and make sure everyone ate a spoonful of lentils and a dozen grapes at midnight on New Year’s Eve, and this, to me, is more like it. Who needs to watch a glittery dropping ball on TV when you have more interesting customs like a spoonful of lentils and a handful of grapes? The lentils are an old Italian ritual. Each little lentil symbolizes a coin, so the idea is eat lots of lentils, gather lots of riches in the new year. Capo d’anno, as the Italians call New Year’s, is all about good fortune ahead and also about clearing out the dross: All over Italy, old unwanted things are tossed out of windows at the stroke of midnight. It is not a night for midnight strolls, for all manner of items are tossed out of windows, even really big things like appliances. To have an old dishwasher fall toward you from a second floor window is something you’ll want to avoid. Best to stay indoors with the revelers in this case.

Grandma Cutrone is long gone and so are the lentils for New Year’s Eve in my family, but on my mother’s side, there the tradition was for homemade zeppole: fried dough, essentially, but the dough is enriched with eggs and this is the only night each year that we do this. The zeppole are dusted in confectioners’ sugar or drizzled with honey for a sweet year ahead. So tonight there will for sure be zeppole. And still at midnight for each person a dozen grapes, one for each month of the year, and a glass of champagne to toast the new year properly.

Scotland is perhaps the place where the new year rings in the loudest, for New Year’s is the height of the Christmas season there, bigger perhaps than even Christmas. The celebration there is known as Hogmanay, which is believed to to be derived from the French au gui menez, “lead to the mistletoe,” and this suggests a very ancient and pre-Christian derivation of most Hogmanay traditions, for it leads directly back to the Celtic druids and the mistletoe that was sacred to their ceremonies. First Footing is an aspect of Hogmanay that feels particularly like a magic spell: The first person to step across the threshold of the front doorway after midnight is this First Footer, and it is hoped that this person would be a red- or dark-haired man carrying whisky or mistletoe or, in some cases, bread, salt and coal. In this case he would kiss all the women and shake the hands of all the men before placing the coal on the fire and the bread and salt on the table and then he’d kiss all the women and shake hands with all the men once more on his way out. A ritual like this goes not without a bit of preplanning, but, as with most rituals, it’s got to be done right if the magic is to work. The goal here is prosperity and good luck, much like the lentils and grapes of Italy… but the lentils and grapes seem less complicated!

Traditions for this night vary across the globe, and we’d love to hear about yours, so please do share them. And may peace, prosperity and good luck be yours and ours in the new year. Good things to us all: good health, good spirit, creativity and wealth. Happy New Year.

Image: Father Time and Baby New Year from Frolic & Fun, 1897. [Public domain] via Wikimedia Commons.

SIXTH DAY of CHRISTMAS:
New Year’s Eve, Hogmanay, First Footing

Just as the Roman god Janus looks back on the old year and forward to the new, so do these Twelve Days of Christmas, half of which fall in the old year and half in the new.  The month of January is named for Janus, a fitting tribute, for Janus does what we do as we cross that threshold, laying to rest the old year that has died, rejoicing in the new year now born.

Most all of us have traditions we follow at this threshold. Visit the grocery stores here in Lake Worth and the first thing you’ll see upon entering are black eyed peas and fresh collard greens, and not too far from them, champagne and grapes. Champagne at midnight on New Year’s Eve is, I think, pretty universal. The peas and greens are traditional New Year foods here in the South. As for the grapes, well, one old Italian tradition in my family is to eat twelve grapes at midnight, which we rarely do, but my sister has already bought the grapes and so this year, we are. On my dad’s side, Grandma Cutrone used to make sure everyone had a spoonful of lentils at the stroke of midnight.

In fact, the humble earthy lentil, cooked in various savory dishes, is very big throughout Italy for Capo d’Anno, the New Year. Lentils symbolize riches (think of each lentil as a coin, and you’d have quite a stash in each bowl). “Out with the old” is also very big in Italy for New Year’s Eve, and Italians traditionally make a clean sweep of things at midnight, opening the windows and tossing old useless possessions out onto the streets, no matter from what height (and with great gusto, no less). It can be a dangerous night for a walk about! The act is rich in symbolism, though: this is a night to shed what is unwanted, to dispel bad energy, to clear the way for good things to come.

In Scotland, New Year is perhaps the height of the Christmastide celebration. The New Year’s feast takes the name Hogmanay, which is thought to be a corruption of the French au gui menez, “lead to the mistletoe,” which calls to mind the Celtic druids of yore, for whom the mistletoe was sacred: the druids would climb the highest oaks with a golden sickle to cut the mistletoe that grew in its upper branches and bring it down (from the heavens) for the people.

Hogmanay has been celebrated in Scotland with great enthusiasm for centuries. As the bells tolled midnight, all of the doors and windows were flung open to let the old year out and to welcome in the new. This would be accompanied by exuberant banging of pots and pans, to scare off any vestiges of the old year that might remain.

One of the most important aspects of the Hogmanay celebration is known as First Footing: the first person after midnight to step across the threshold of the doorway is the person who brings fortune to the whole household. It should be the right kind of person, too, and so often families will make arrangements with a friend or acquaintance to make sure that happens, for the wrong kind of First Footer could bring bad luck for the year. The best of the First Footers, according to the custom, would be a red- or dark-haired man, and he would enter the home carrying a gift of whisky or mistletoe or else coal, bread, and salt. He would place the bread and salt on the table and the coal upon the fire. He would kiss all the women and shake hands with all the men twice: once upon entering, and once more after his gifts were given.

Here in South Florida, one of the most culturally diverse regions of the world, there are all kinds of customs for bringing in the new year. Fireworks go off at midnight. One friend of ours, who is from Honduras, gathers with his family and they all take turns running around the house with luggage. This, I think, ensures travels in the coming year. Another friend, who is also from Latin America, has a custom where everyone in attendance runs around the house at midnight donning underwear on top of their regular clothing. I have no idea what that ensures, but it’s quite a sight, I’m sure.

New Year’s Eve traditions all seem to have one thing in common: the universal wish for good things in the new year. And this is our wish, as well. Happy New Year.