Stray Leaves from a Border Garden 
Overjoyed the small maid now 
Hastens to the Saviour’s side, 
While the Angel o’er the snow 
Wings his way where Angels bide. 
It is also called St. Agnes’-flower in Germany. 
December 31. — New Year’s Eve. We gathered the first 
bunch of snowdrops to-day, about a dozen, the earliest 
bunch known. Truly the little “ friend in adversity,” for 
this is what the snowdrop means in flower-language. 
January 1. — The custom of “First Footing” seems to 
be dying out here. Old people tell me it used to be an 
invariable custom for folk to go round paying visits, or, as 
they put it, “ calling for ” their friends and neighbours on 
New Year’s Day, being made welcome with cake and wine, 
ginger cordials and homebrews of various kinds. Children 
were wont to begin quite early in the morning, running 
round from room to room, paying visits to the different 
inmates,- with shortbread as a gift in hand. This same 
custom of paying visits of ceremony on the first day of the 
year prevailed in Germany, and is still the custom in 
France, where I remember a species of Christmas-cake and 
“ Vin cuit,” a sort of thick, sweet home-made wine, being 
offered by poor people. New Year’s Day altogether always 
was of more account in Scotland than Christmas Day, 
though of late years the Episcopal Church reverence for 
Christmas Day seems to be gaining ground with the Pres- 
byterians, and Christmas Day taking the place of New 
Year’s Day in the way of holiday and present-giving and 
prevalence of Christmas-trees. Watch Night services are 
not infrequent now in Edinburgh at Yuletide, though I 
believe they have prevailed in other parts of the world for 
some time ; at least I know they are much frequented in 
the West Indies. Hogmanay, as the last day of the year 
used to be called here, was a time for present-giving, and a 
special cake was baked in honour of the night called 
a Hogmanay. 
December was called the Winter Month by the heathen 
Saxons, but the Christian Saxons called it the Holy Month, 
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