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UK NEW YEAR TRADITIONS AND CUSTOMS
There are still a few old New Year traditions that persist here in the north of England (we aren't all that far from Scotland, where they take the whole thing - Hogmanay - MUCH more seriously.)
The main New Year custom is the tradition of "First-Footing" - the first person to enter the house after midnight should be a tall, dark stranger. (Difficult here, in a small east-coast village where a) most people are fair or even blonde due to our Viking and Saxon heritage and b) there ARE no strangers!)
This "first-footer" must bring with him (must be a "him") a lump of coal, some bread and a handful of salt, to ensure prosperity in the household for the coming year. The tradition is gradually dying out but we still do occasionally get "first-footers" going from door to door with the requisite coal, bread and salt, and the traditional greeting "Lang may your lum reek" (Long may your chimney smoke - an invocation to keep the fire in the hearth burning and therefore the house warm and cosy, rather obsolete in this age of central heating!), getting a drink at each house and getting steadily more sozzled as they go on their way!
My husband is Welsh and comes from Pembrokeshire; there in the remote Gwaun Valley they still celebrate Christmas and New Year (Nos Galan) under the Old Style (Julian) Calendar on January 6th and 12th. As they also celebrate on the modern dates too, there is some serious partying going on there for several days!
Even further north, in the Shetland islands, the New Year is welcomed in very dramatically with the ceremony of "Up-Helly-Aa" which has its roots in Viking ceremonies. The locals (most of them dressed up as Vikings) parade round the main town of Lerwick with burning torches - it never gets fully daylight in midwinter in such high latitudes - and end with the ceremonious launching of a burning Viking ship and bonfires and much general partying. Although this is an "end-of-year" celebration, it actually takes place on the last Tuesday in January, the celebration of 2009 is on January 27th.