CR5 Issue 152 Jan 2018

Welcoming in the Old New Year By Catherine Rose
As we bring in 2018 with toasts,
fireworks and a rousing rendition
of Auld Lang Syne, it’s perhaps
worth remembering that New
Year has been a bit of a moveable
feast.
It is not written in stone that New
Year be celebrated on 1st January.
With the now well-known and
colourful carnival that takes place
in London, most of us are familiar
with the Chinese New Year that
takes place a few weeks after our
own. But did you know that some
people in Europe also mark the
start of New Year a little later than
we do?
The 2018 Chinese New Year will
take place on 16th February, which
is the 23rd day of the twelfth
month in the Chinese lunar calendar.
A national holiday in China,
celebrations feature processions
with drums, Chinese dragons,
firecrackers to ward off evil spirits,
and decorations in signature red
for good luck, including banners
and Chinese lanterns.
The Chinese New Year is also
known as the Spring Festival, and
celebrations which mark the end
of winter and the start of a new
crop year have been common
since the pagan era, when New
Year was traditionally observed
on 22nd March at the time of the
vernal equinox.
Today, in common with the rest
of Europe and most of the world,
we all use the Gregorian calendar
originally set up by Pope Gregory
XIII in 1582. Europe universally
adopted this calendar in the 18th
century, although Russia was
behind, changing over to it in 1918
after the Bolshevik Revolution.
Previously, the older Julian calendar,
introduced by Julius Caesar in
46BC, had been observed. According
to this calendar, New Year’s
Day falls in the middle of January,
after the end of the Advent fast.
The Russian Orthodox Church
continues to abide by the Julian
calendar and although it is not recognised
as a national holiday, the
‘Old New Year’ is still celebrated
by Orthodox Christians in central
and eastern Europe on 13th and
14th January.
These countries include Russia,
Ukraine, Belarus, Bosnia and
Herzegovina, Georgia, Uzbekistan,
Montenegro, Azerbaijan, Moldova,
Macedonia, and Serbia (as well as
in Greece), comprising Orthodox
Christians across countries that
together once formed the USSR,
where celebrating the Old New
Year had previously been banned
by the Communist regime.
14th January also coincides with
St Basil’s Day, and the festival is
marked with feasting, bonfires
and fireworks. In Macedonia,
people gather outside their
houses to share food and drink
and to sing traditional songs. It
is customary to eat unleavened
(pita) bread with a coin inside (or
dumplings with a hidden charm in
Russia). Much like our Christmas
pudding tradition, whoever finds
the coin will have good luck for
the New Year. And in Serbia, the
Church puts on firework displays.
The customary feast includes a
range of pork dishes in the hope
of securing a good farming year,
the traditional St Basil celebratory
dinner being a whole roasted pig.
Another St Basil’s day morning tradition
has been to eat ceremonial
porridge that has been cooked
overnight by the oldest woman in
the house. The porridge would be
prepared and put into the oven in
the early hours of New Year’s Eve
(13th), and the condition of the
porridge the following morning
would signify whether the year
was to be a good one or not. Thick
crusted porridge was auspicious,
but thin pale porridge or a cracked
pot spelled disaster for the
household.
Observing New Year in the middle
of January is not uncommon and
other countries across the world
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have their equivalents. Berber
tribes in North Africa (Morocco
and Libya) mark New Year
according to the Berber calendar,
which roughly coincides with the
Julian one. India also celebrates at
this time, following the perceived
change in the sun’s path from
south to north, in a festival known
as Makar Sankranti. And parts of
Switzerland see in New Year under
the umbrella of St Sylvester’s Day.
It can be said that no one knows
how to welcome in New Year like
the Scots but although Scottish
Hogmanay on the eve of 31st
December is perhaps the most
famous revelry of the New Year,
the old Gaelic custom was to welcome
New Year on 12th January.
In Wales, this is still known as Hen
Galan, and there are traditional
Welsh songs associated with it
that are sung today.
The Gaelic year was broken up
into quarters: earrach (spring),
samhradh (summer), foghar (autumn)
and geamhradh (winter),
each marked by its own feast day.
A few parts of Scotland continue
to celebrate the Old New Year,
known as Oidhche Chullaig or
Oidhche Challainn where children
would traditionally visit each home
in their village reciting a Gaelic
New Year blessing while carrying a
caisein-uchd – a torch made from
the breast bone of a sheep dipped
in tallow.
Used to light the householder’s
fire, it was then handed around to
each member of the family who
had to circle it above their head
three times for luck. Unfortunately
for some, if the flame died, it
meant that the person would not
live to see the New Year out!
In Burghead in the Moray Firth,
residents continue to celebrate
Old New Year with the ‘burning of
the clavie’ – a torch made of barrel
staves, which is lit on the evening
of 11th January.
January can often be a cold and
dispiriting month following on
from our Christmas and New Year
festivities, so perhaps celebrating
the ‘Old New Year’ in the middle
of it isn’t such a bad idea after all.