From colorful fireworks giving off sparkle to the clinking of glasses and cheering of friends, there is one tradition not even 2009’s swine flu will prevent - the New Year’s Eve kiss at the stroke of midnight.
“I have always heard if you don’t kiss someone on New Year’s Eve that you will have bad luck in love for the coming year,” Lynne Gatlin of Greenwood said. “So, everybody’s always done it.”
It is for exactly that reason Gatlin was convinced to kiss someone she didn’t really know as the countdown came to an end.
“One year, I was out for New Year’s but I wasn’t with anyone in particular and I didn’t really want to kiss the guy I was with,” Gatlin said. “But it would be bad luck if I didn’t, so I gave him just a little peck.”
But when luck in on the line, a little smooch can be harmless.
However, in countries throughout the world, kissing or touching one’s lips to another person is considered a sign not only of affection but of respect. It is still used as a form of greeting a friend or even a complete stranger.
But as Carly Moss and her friends discovered while in New Orleans one year for New Year’s Eve, it isn’t always wise to kiss a complete stranger.
“Everyone had a boyfriend except for one girl who was with us and she was a little bit down in the dumps about it,” Moss said. “So, she just picked a random person to kiss in the bar when it was midnight.”
Despite having a midnight moment, the fellow wasn’t exactly the perfect pick.
“They ended up talking a little bit after and he called her for a while once they left New Orleans but he wasn’t the one,” Moss said. “We all still laugh about it.”
Moss prefers having a special person to give the midnight kiss to on New Year’s Eve.
The tradition of kissing a loved one on New Year’s Eve has been a point of much speculation over the years.
The Times-Standard newspaper serving Eureka, Calif., cited historians who credit the Romans with starting the tradition of kissing and merry making during their New Year’s Eve celebration, which was called the Festival of Saturnalia.
Later, it has been said that the English and the Germans celebrated by kissing the first person they met when the bells chimed midnight in the new year.
Greenwood residents, such as Moss, who don’t like the idea of kissing strangers can be happy they aren’t Scottish.
During the ancient Scottish festival of Hogmanay, it was typical to kiss loved ones, enemies and strangers because it is time for a new beginning.
Mary Gregory Porter of Greenwood knew exactly how she wanted to start her new beginning as a wife - on New Year’s Eve.
Why a New Year’s Eve wedding?
“I hate to say it, but there is something magical about it,” Porter said.
Despite not getting engaged until September 2005, Mary Gregory and Doty Porter knew they wanted to get married on that magical night and set the date immediately. The couple exchanged vows at 7:30 p.m. Dec. 31, 2005.
“I thought it was a great day to have a big celebration like a wedding,” Porter said. “None of our friends and family had plans, and it happened to fall on a Saturday that year.”
Despite the naysayers who didn’t think people would to go a wedding on New Year’s Eve, Porter and her husband-to-be planned a blowout wedding and New Year’s Eve party with the help of friends and family in less than 90 days.
“I knew the people who meant the most would be there,” Porter said.
They planned for the wedding to be kind of late to ensure that the party would keep going through midnight.
“We had a band from New Orleans, a countdown to midnight and everything else you would have at a typical New Year’s party,” Porter said.
And at midnight, the couple leaned in for their first New Year’s Eve kiss as a married couple.
Little did they know that their son, Benz, would be born two years later also on New Year’s Eve.
“He was the last baby born in the hospital where we were at before the new year,” Porter said. “It was really neat.”
That night she got to give one more very special midnight kiss.
Although the pressure is off for Porter and other married couples, kissing someone for the first time, especially on New Year’s Eve, can be intimidating.
“It is a great way to break the ice with someone,” Rachael Tackett said. “You have already kissed her, now just ask her out for dinner.”
Another sage piece of advice is to make sure you keep it fresh and clean.
“Don’t have bad breath, nobody likes that,” Tackett said. “Just put in a mint and go for it.”
If you don’t really know the person you are with, Tackett suggests a little peck will do.
“It is supposed to be a fun way to ring in the new year,” Tackett said. “Go ahead and kiss.”
