You take your decorations down on 1 dec? What about Christmas day

I'm guessing you meant January

when we were kids we would do it all xmas eve...decorate the tree and the rooms....
gave it a better feeling........

We used to put ours up a few days before Christmas. Us kids used to make paper chains and my mum and dad used to stick then up everywhere. Brought back a few memories when Staffy mentioned her kids do it

lol sorry having a blonde day today

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hogmanay
Definition of Hogmany

"The first-foot is supposed to set the luck for the rest of the year, so it is important that a suitable person does the job. A tall, dark man bearing a gift is preferred."

This must have been written by a woman. Sure we all would like a tall, dark (and handsome) man to pop over in the early hours with a gift.

Oh, and thanks Tracie for doing the research. Very interesting!

My son always laughs at me because I always open my back door first to let the old year out then open the front door for my first footerand to let the new year in. The first footer used to bring a lump of coal and coin. The coal meant you would never be short of fuel for heat and cooking and the coin to pay for food. Are there any old traditions that any other DW'pers follow?
Tracie

We have friends from the netherlands (who now live in England). At their New year's parties, they always made us jump off the couch 'into the new year'. We loved it as kids, and I suppose I thought this was normal. Mentioned it to my OH, he thought I had lost it, said he had never heard of anything so stupid.

But it made sense to us as kids, and I would like to continue it with my daughter when she is older.

I still follow that tradition Tracie The coal is placed on the fire (if it's a coal burning one) and the coin given to me. Even my kids get ready now to open the back and front door.