Skarpi I posted this somewhere else but it probably belongs here. When I was young we didn't do Christmas if you were a RC you went to midnight mass if you were protestant or drunk you went to a watchnight service. When we came home from church I would be given one present to open, the next morning I might get a couple more after dad got home from work. the presents were never big in fact the one I remember best was twelve peny bars of Cadbury chocolate which were hidden around the house and clues left for me to find them.

Hogmany however was a different matter everyone got thier nerdy (probably spelt that wrong)fairin. The house was cleaned from top to bottom, all debts were cleared and the table was groaning under the weight of steak pies tatties and peas and bowls of trifle. As the first bell rang a train would pass and the warning crackers were laid on the line you would hear the bang bang bang bang as it passed. Then all the ships on the Clyde would begin to sound thier Whistles. The tallest darkest haired person you could find would go outside just before the bells carrying a lump of coal and some black bun or shortbread and a bottle of whisky and would enter the house on the last bell to bring good fortune for the comming year. It was always a rush to open the front and back windows to let the new year in and the auld year out for youth and age cannot use the same portal. On the last bell one of our neighbours who was a piper would strike up and march round the circle of street that surrounded our scheme playing he was tea tottal but there was always one of the men willing to down the pipers dram.

Everyone would toast the new year with either a nip of whisky or sherry weel except for us bairns we were on the raspberry cordial. Back then it was a nip a true nip glass would have held a mans thmb to the length of a well cut nail. Then folk joined hands to sing Auld Lang Syne and another toast "Tae absent friens" after that no one was allowed from the house until a hearty meal had been eaten. My brothers would then leave to go first footing others while our door never closed till the last folk frae the street had eaten and wandered on to other houses.

Everyone had their party piece and the night passed in story telling poetry music and song till folk began tae tak the gate ye could hear them wending thier way home singing "We're no awa tae bide awa"