De studerendes månedsmagasin - Studenterlauget

Hogmanay
Text: Tina Hitz Christensen
Photo: Andrew Grantham
When one year ends and another begins,
people are celebrating all over the world.
Common for most countries, New Year celebrations
include a great deal of alcohol but
otherwise traditions vary widely from country
to country. Scotland is known for having
very strong traditions and as many of
these are said to descend from the Vikings,
commerciel decided to send a reporter to
Scotland to find out how alike, or how different,
Scottish New Year celebrations are from
the Danish.
When arriving in the small village in the
Scottish highlands, it became obvious to me
just how highly the Scotsmen value their
New Year traditions. When I asked the locals
about New Year they looked at me, slightly
offended, and explained that the Scots do
not celebrate New Year; they celebrate Hogmanay,
which is the Scottish name for the
annual festival.
The Scottish Hogmanay is mostly known for
its gigantic street parties in big cities like
Edinburg and Glasgow where bands play for
thousands of people. But seeing that I was
spending time in a very small village with
2 COMMERCIEL - DE STUDERENDES MÅNEDSMAGASIN
New Year for the tough
only one pub I was about to experience a
completely different type of Hogmanay. And
I had my doubts about how fun a night it
could be in a place this small.
A pub full of kilts
In Denmark, many people start the last
night of the year with a nice dinner with
friends or family in a private house. This
is not the tradition in Scotland and as the
entire population of the village would be
celebrating the night down the pub, we decided
to go down early and have our dinner
there so that we would be sure to have a
place to sit when people started to crowd in.
And they really did. It had not even reached
eight o’clock before it was almost impossible
to get to the bar. People, young and
old, were laughing and talking and singing
along to the music played by a local band
on a small stage in a corner of the pub. I
looked around and was thrilled to see just
how many men were in kilts. I thought it
was just a myth and that they did not wear
them anymore, but they certainly did. And
for those of you who are wondering; no, real
Scotsmen do not have anything under their
kilts!
The bells strike
As the time went on many pints were
poured, glasses emptied and people started
dancing on the tables in order to get room
to move. I was one of them. All of a sudden
I noticed that the music stopped and
a loud noise went through the pub. It was
the bag pipes playing as a symbol of the
time almost having reached midnight. The
countdown started and the bells struck
midnight and suddenly I felt kisses and
happy New Year greetings from everybody
around me, regardless of whether I knew
them or not. I never thought I would kiss
that many strangers in one evening. Then
people crossed arms and started singing
Auld Lang Syne while I looked out the window
and tried to spot some of the fireworks
that, in Denmark, would be lightening up
the dark night. But there was nothing to be
seen. Apparently, not many private people
buy fireworks over here. But then again,
when would they have time to fire them off?
Between the countdown, the kissing, the
singing and dancing there would be no time