“Have youse all the reddin up done for Hogmanay?  If ye haven, there’s aye time yet!”

Hogmanay is an old Scottish tradition based on the belief that it is bad luck to enter a new year with a messy home. The tradition involves a thorough clean of your whole life namely your home and your outstanding debts. All needs to be completed before the bells ring at midnight on December 31. The purpose is to clear out the remnants of the old year and bring in the new year with a fresh clean slate.

So today is January 1, 2026. 2025 has been a very busy and challenging year for me personally. The new year has snuck in like a thief but the chaos of the old year has gone out. With a new year comes new goals, new aspirations, and new challenges.

I come from a Scottish heritage but was totally unaware of the concept of Hogmanay until I travelled to Scotland and started to truly appreciate old cultural traditions. And one of those is Hogmanay. It is such a wonderful concept to clean “every corner” and start the new year with a fresh start. So many times we continue destructive patterns from one year to the next.

I really liked the idea of Hogmanay and the first year that I attempted to have my home “all reddin up” I became exhausted. Rather than admit failure and defeat I pivoted to a new plan. I needed a strategy that was manageable for a full time working person but still keep alive the spirit of Hogmanay. I needed to chunk the “reddin up” into manageable bits that could be done throughout the year so that by New Years Eve I would have exhaustively thrown out the old so I could bring in the new year unburdened.

Thus became the “YEAR OF LIVING HOGMANAY“.

Journey with me in the coming year as we explore the lifestyle of the “year of living hogmanay” and I commit to clean out every corner of my home and lighten up my life one room at a time……