Edinburgh's traditional Scottish New Year's Eve festival is called Hogmanay.
Hogmanay is the Scottish celebration of the New Year, and Edinburgh hosts one of the world’s best-known organized versions. Its program has included torchlight processions, concerts, street parties, ceilidhs, and a midnight fireworks display near Edinburgh Castle.
The word Hogmanay has uncertain origins, and historians have proposed several French, Norse, Gaelic, and Scots connections. The modern celebration also reflects Scotland’s historical winter customs, including visiting friends and relatives after midnight and bringing symbolic gifts such as shortbread, coal, or whisky.
First-footing is a particularly famous custom: the first person to enter a household after midnight is traditionally expected to bring good luck, with a dark-haired male visitor often considered especially fortunate in some regions. Hogmanay is not another name for Burns Night, which honors poet Robert Burns on January 25.