Traditionally in England, Christmas was our big winter celebration. Scotland was different. In Scotland, New Year was the more important celebration. On New Year’s Eve, on 31 December, Scotsmen wore kilts, and had parties where they danced traditional Scottish dances and welcomed the New Year with bagpipes. And we English? What did we do? Well, we either watched television programmes about Scottish people having a great party on New Year’s Eve; or we went to bed early.

　　But it isn’t like that today. The Scots still party on New Year’s Eve, but so do we in England. The Scots still have a huge street party in Edinburgh, the capital city of Scotland, with bands and singers and fireworks. But so do we in many cities in England. In London, for example, 700,000 people watched a great fireworks display on the river Thames. Of course, not everyone went to a New Year’s Eve party. But many of those who stayed at home watched other people having a party on television. Millions of people watched the London fireworks on television, for example. It is as if we all want to be part of a big national New Year’s Eve party.

　　Here are some other things which are typical of England at New Year. People visit friends and relatives. They go for walks in the country, or in the parks in towns. Some brave folk go for a swim in the sea or a river on New Year’s Day. People read books, or go to football matches, or write thank-you letters for the gifts they received at Christmas. Travelling at during the holiday is a particular adventure. There are traffic jams on the roads, and long queues at the airports, and our railway system is in chaos, because Christmas and New Year is the time when major engineering works take place. And we go shopping.

　　Traditionally, all the big stores had sales in January. They cut the prices of many of the things they sold, especially things like winter clothes or goods which they had not managed to sell for Christmas. There were lots of special offers, and people used to queue all night outside some of the stores, in order to get to the bargains first when the store opened. So what is different today? Only that the sales now begin immediately after Christmas. Indeed some stores begin their sales before Christmas Day. And now we can hunt for bargains on the internet as well as in the shops. The newspapers have reported that we British spent ?84m buying things on the internet on Christmas Day.

　　But now it is January. The weather is dark and wet. The long Christmas and new Year holiday is over. It is time to go back to work. Time to lose some weight. Time to give up smoking. Time to pay our credit card bills. Happy New Year.