Hogmanay is the traditional Scottish solstice festival, celebrated on December 31 to allow celebrants to recover from the hangovers incurred on the actual solstice and then again on Christmas.
Hogmanay customs include first-footing, an annual brawl to be first across the threshold of the neighbor with the best remaining supply of whisky; and first-smooching, an annual brawl to be first to kiss any attractive colleen who forgot to flee to somplace safer, like the crater of Mauna Loa. If you're the first across your neighbor's threshold to drink all his whisky, and the first to kiss his wife, daughter or granny, you're considered extremely lucky. Because you'll be moving out of the neighborhood very soon.
The origin of the word Hogmanay is obscure, research having been effectively stalled by the haze induced by the celebration itself. There is little evidence to support the theory I'm trying to float, which is that befuddled farmers returning home on January 1 were trying very hard not to reveal that they'd spent all the Hog Money.
Coming next week: The long-anticipated series on Single Malt Scotch Terriers
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