Averagely Adventurous

I've heard the term "Hogmanay" once before on an obscure TV show.  Now it is plastered all over our grocery store. I was a little confused, because the context in which I understood it before was that it's a Scottish Christmas tradition.  I looked it up and Hogmanay actually celebrates the last day of the old year, A.K.A. New Year's Eve.  There are many traditions of Hogmanay, though I'm not sure how many are celebrated in modern times.  I've heard of one which occurs at midnight when people leave their homes to visit others in the race to be the "first footer"- the first people to enter the house in the new year.  The "first footer" usually brings gifts to represent a hopeful and prosperous new year. There's also events like torchlight marches through the city and huge parties in the streets.  (is Scotland is obsessed with fire the way Americans are with fireworks??) Their Hogmanay traditions are so extreme that they even have trad...

 We didn't have any sort of plans, just did what we wanted without making a fuss.  I think that should be the theme after everything everyone has been through in the past two years. Everyone here seems to be relaxed around the holidays; no outrageous house decorations, empty grocery stores, or red and green plastered everywhere. There's still exciting things like the Christmas Market or the city lights, but it's concentrated to one area downtown.  So we decided to go with the flow and enjoy the Scottish way of life. 

Something I've been jealous of, in other cities, is Christmas markets. Glasgow is a BIG city, so the events have been well publicized and easy to track.  I've had this event marked down since before Thanksgiving.  I planned on us tasting the food, desserts, as well as the mulled wine and cider.  From past articles, I read that there are usually two markets, one in George Square and one in St. Enoch Square, in downtown Glasgow.  The larger one in George Square was cancelled, and to make up for it, the city put up a big display of Christmas lights.  The other square has a smaller market this year, but it seemed just as exciting.  

I kept seeing rain and snow in the weather forecast, but had yet to see any flurries. We woke up to rain, but around noon, I swore I saw white flurries among the rain.  I asked Pedro if he could see it too, and as we watched, it slowly grew to more snow and less rain.  Needless to say, I freaked out.  We both grew up in a tropical climate, only experiencing snow a few times.  This was a weather phenomenon to us. I was dashing between the kitchen window and living room window to try to see the most of it.  Soon, it was bigger bits of snow falling, and I rushed outside. It wasn't sticking to the ground, but the wind was swirling it every which way. We talked about the last time we each saw snow, and hoped it'd continue during the winter. With any luck, our first Christmas in Scotland will be white. 

The festive season has brought out a lot of differences here in the UK. First, we had Thanksgiving. I made appropriately themed food for two, and we enjoyed our toaster oven feast. (We have yet to use the big oven, it doesn't seem to heat well)  The best thing was, I went shopping for ingredients the day of!   It wasn't Thanksgiving for the rest of the neighborhood, so I didn't have to hunt for green beans the week before.