New Year's kiss is part of tradition

Web posted December 30, 1998

By Roxanne Roberts
The Washington Post

WASHINGTON -- The New Year's Eve kiss is filled with tradition and symbolism, an ancient talisman of luck for the coming year. Some medieval poets believed a kiss was the intermingling of two souls, which is why whom you kiss (if, in fact, you kiss anyone on this night) requires special consideration.

Ideally, you are standing next to your beloved as the clock inches toward midnight. As the chimes begin to ring, you share a sweet, lingering kiss. This would be your basic romance novel New Year's Eve kiss. Everyone ought to get one or two of these in a lifetime, and you should be appropriately grateful when it's your turn.

Next best is the date kiss, which is more an issue of good manners than passion.

``Be sure you kiss the guy you came to the party with,'' advises former U.S. chief of protocol Selwa ``Lucky'' Roosevelt. ``A little too much champagne and you might forget.''

There is a pecking order: If more than one midnight kiss is proffered, the official date of the evening gets kissed first.

But should you find yourself alone in a room full of strangers or mere acquaintances, the kiss becomes a more complicated affair. Do you grab the first person to cross your path and plant a big wet smackeroo, or leave before midnight to avoid the whole issue? Hide in a corner or the restroom? Allow total strangers to slobber all over you? Or, worse yet, stand there waiting for a kiss that never comes?

``Go for it, I would say,'' says World Bank President James Wolfensohn.

Mr. Wolfensohn is an urbane, gregarious fellow who has kissed and been kissed at social events for most of his life. He has never found himself the recipient of a really horrid kiss. ``It's never happened to me.'' One suspects Mr. Wolfensohn has learned the secret to enjoying a New Year's Eve party: gracefully positioning yourself for the right kiss from the right person.