What do a sheep’s stomach, a coin, tortellini and a dark-haired stranger have in common? They are all part of New Year’s traditions.

With the many different ethnic backgrounds that make up Natchez, different families have different ways of celebrating New Year’s Eve and Day.

Jeanie Monroe Attenhoffer celebrates New Year’s in a traditional Scottish manner with her husband, Ken, and friends Bobby and Polly Scott.

The Scottish tradition of New Year’s is called Hogmanay.

Each year the Scotts, Attenhoffers and other members of the Scottish Heritage Society in Natchez meet at a member’s home and usher in the new year with the traditional Scottish meal of Haggis, a boiled sheep’s stomach stuffed with ground mutton.

“At the party there is a procession where a person presents the Haggis and a bagpiper comes through the door,” Polly said.

Jeanie said the group also practices the tradition of the “first footer.”

At midnight, the front door of the house is opened and whomever crosses the threshold first brings luck with them.

Candace Bundgard, Scottish heritage member and hostess, said it is preferred if the first footer is a dark-haired person.

Bundgard said the tradition dates back to when Vikings, who were typically blonde, raided Scotland.

“It was considered bad luck for a person with blonde or fair hair to come into the house,” Bundgard said.

“So if a person with dark hair came in it meant (they) weren’t a Viking.”

Once the gentleman with dark hair crosses the threshold at midnight, Attenhoffer said the group will toast the host and hostess of the party with a “wee dram” or small drink of scotch.

“(It’s) lots of fun and lots of laughs and a good get-together with good friends,” Attenhoffer said.

Modie Mascagni said the men in his family are bringing back an Italian tradition on New Year’s Day this year.

Mascagni said when he and his brother, Michael, were young, his father, uncles and other male Italian-American friends would travel, on foot, to other Italian-American houses and bang on their door shouting “Snoggum Boggum Bomb.”

When the door was answered, Mascagni said the men would enter and share a drink of whiskey, while the male children would receive gifts of fruit and money.

“My brother and I would look forward to New Year’s more than Christmas because we would (sometimes) come home with $20,” Mascagni said. “That was a lot of money for a nine- or ten-year-old.”

Also served at the parties, Mascagni said, was a dish called “too too loin,” a tortellini pasta shell stuffed with cheese, spinach and pork and served with a tomato and chicken broth-based sauce.

Mascagni said his family stopped the tradition when he left Natchez in 1993, but now that he is back he is starting it again.

“It starts the New Year out right,” Mascagni said.

As a child, the New Year’s tradition for Peter Hamezopoulos was a piece of cake.

Hamezopoulos, owner of the Center City Bistro, grew up in Olympia, Greece.

Hamezopoulos said every New Year’s, his family would serve a sweet cake called Vasilopita. Inside the cake was a small coin.

“When the family got the cake, whoever got the coin was the lucky one,” Hamezopoulos said.

Hamezopoulos said he got the coin one time as a child.

Other New Year’s Eve traditions include eating a southern dish called Hoppin’ John — black-eyed peas made with ham hocks — for good luck, watching the ball drop in Times Square and watching the Rose Bowl and the Tournament of Roses parade, which both take place in Pasadena, Calif.