We are bringing in the new year on Scotland’s time with kilted pipers and drummers and a crowd of people who also think this is the best idea ever. While everyone else in Canada, coast to coast to coast, is awaiting the stroke of midnight in their respective time zones, we will be whooping it up at four in the afternoon and celebrating Hogmanay with the Scots. We will raise a glass for Auld Lang Syne and toast the new year.
This has become a new tradition for my husband and I – it began a few years back when our daughter started to date one of the kilted pipers. We discovered we had a lot in common with this bonnie bunch – I had no idea the pipes could move me to tears or that the drums could echo the beat of my heart during a soulful lament. We now look forward to this yearly event like others might wait for the festivities in Times Square. Celebrating Hogmanay at four in the afternoon gives us ample time to celebrate the new year and still gets us to bed at a reasonable time.
This year we are having dinner with dear friends after the piping party tonight. I have set the dining room table with the china I inherited from my mother – her prized place settings. I thought about her, and my dad, as I lifted the plates out of hiding – they are the Auld in the Lang Syne tonight. I’m not sure I have ever set a table with these particular dishes before – they were too special to use when the kids were young, and too few in number when the kids got older. Hidden from view and a bit forgotten, they have collected dust for twenty eight years. They are bringing in a new year tonight.
This new year is posing its own potential, I suppose every year does the same. I’m a little maudlin as I’m watching 2017 tick away. It’s been an eventful year; a happy one, a sad one, a busy one. As I put it to bed tonight I will toast it before I tuck it in. The pipes will lament, the drums will beat and then we will welcome the possibilities of 2018. Happy New Year.
Comments (1)
Excellent!