Auld Lang Syne

If home is where the heart is, then mine is split in two. I make my home among the mountains and the forests. But most everyone I love is on the plains. We had not spent Christmas with family since 2020, so it was back to Iowa this week, for four days of feasting and telling stories. Of the things that have happened to us this year and what we expect from the one to come. When Scottish poet Robert Burns wrote Auld Lang Syne, which means "Old Long Since", it was about the need to remember the past even as we move on from it.

The folk song is traditionally sung at the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve. But also at funerals, graduations, and other occasions as a way to say farewell. Most New Year's folklore centers on bringing one year to a proper close and starting the new one off right. It has long been traditional among country folk to host a bonfire on the last night of the year. In ancient times this may have been to ward off spiritual evils or keep wild animals away. But is now more of an excuse to gather under the night sky.

Some towns around me ring in the new year with church bells. The clocktower chimes midnight here, but to be fair, it does that every night of the year. Many will prepare special meals. Black eyed peas and collard greens to bring wealth. "Peas for pennies, greens for dollars, and cornbread for gold," and old Southern saying goes. Up North here it is more likely to be pork and sauerkraut for good luck. "The pig roots forward," the Pennsylvania Dutch say. But it could be that hogs are usually butchered in cold weather. Ensuring good cuts of pork are available come New Year's Day.

In colonial America celebrants might go wassailing as in the old Christmas tradition. Walking from house to house, demanding food and drink, being unpleasant if they did not get it. Sometimes they left the door open for neighbors to come in and join in the fun. New Year's fell in the middle of Christmastide, so gifts were often exchanged. At the stroke of midnight, the head of the household would throw the door open and hold it until the last sound. To let the old year out and the new one in. Then family would gather for breakfast on New Year's Day, and each of them would open the Bible to a page at random, believing the chosen verse would predict their fate for the coming year.

I am a firm believer in families having their own culture, and every home its own set of traditions. But growing up mine never had any around New Year's Eve. We might have played some board games and got to stay up late to watch the ball drop. As an adult a tradition I have wanted to start is the New Year's Eve bonfire. A warming stew and hot mulled wine, and some cozy wool blankets to burrow into. But it seems like everyone I know is too old to brave the cold or has young children they cannot keep out too late. Though I did marry into some good country folk, more social than my own clan, who would be up for it if they did not live 1,200 miles away.

Regardless of how we end up celebrating I am looking back at this year and ahead to the next. The County Gentleman will not be a year old for another month but is closing out its first calendar year with more than 2,000 subscribers. I do not have an explanation for this. But I suspect that authenticity works, and there are not a lot of rural voices on here. I am humbled. Know that I will only redouble my efforts in 2025 to be worthy of your continued support. I hope that you had a very Merry Christmas, dear reader, and I wish you the happiest of New Years.