So you have your small screen television, your Cheez Whiz, your saltines, your Vienna sausages, Melba Toast and Jacques Bonet “champagne method,” and you are all set for New Year’s Eve.

But you know, deep down in your heart of hearts, that there is something missing … like a date.

If you have visited Google.com, you know that New Year’s Eve was meant for bigger and better things.

While you are singing “Auld Lang Syne” (wondering what those words mean) along with whomever replaces Dick Clark in Times Square, you wonder what other celebrants are doing for the holiday.

Your mind drifts off to Scotland, where they invented Scotch, after all, plus the celebration of Hogmanay – which has nothing to do with the eating habits of that Red Sox left fielder.

The meaning of Hogmanay is, of course, “first footing.” You and your best pal, or gal, are supposed to set it up so they become the first person to walk across your threshold in the initial seconds of 2006.

If they are a real gal, or pal, they are supposed to be carrying coal, shortbread or silverware to bring luck to you. Some of us would prefer to see someone carrying a quart of Dewar’s Scotch and just forget the good luck, but that is a different tale entirely.

Plus, they should bring a fireball. Honest to God.

The Hogmanay custom in Stonehaven, Kincardineshire, calls for the construction of (seriously) chicken wire, tar, paper and other flammable materials to a diameter of a meter, alleged to be slightly longer than a yard.

The balls (I am not kidding) are assigned to a swinger (I am still not kidding) who swings the flaming ball round and round overhead while walking through the streets to the harbor. The flaming balls are then thrown into the ocean.

I don’t know about your town, but if I walked from Cobb Manor to Camden Harbor with a flaming ball swinging over my head on New Year’s Eve, I would be arrested before I got to Windward Gardens nursing home, which is about 500 feet away.

I can see myself trying to explain to Camden Police Chief Phil Roberts that this overhead, swinging conflagration is “an old Stonehaven, Kincardineshire, custom.”

Phil would say, I would guess, “Right, Emmet. Put your hands behind your back, please.”

You may not believe it, but Hogmanay took precedence as top holiday for about three centuries in Scotland because the Presbyterian Church discouraged the celebration of Christmas. (Honest to god.) Christmas was a normal working day until the 1960s and even the 1970s in some Presbyterian regions. I bet the kids were furious. The celebrations and lugubrious gift giving, which now dominate the Christmas season, were held between Dec. 31 and Jan. 2 if you were Presbyterian.

If you still have time, you could book a flight to Edinburgh where the New Year’s Eve celebrations are considered to be the best in world, largely for their proximity to barrels of Scotch.

Or, if you still have time, you could book a flight to Madrid, Spain. If you party in Madrid on New Year’s Eve, you are given 12 grapes to be consumed with each of the 12 chimes from Puerta del Sol church at the end of the year.

Or, if you want to stay at home, just take a chug from that Jacques Bonet bottle as Dick Clark or his replacement rings in the new year at Times Square.

Hey, it beats a flaming ball swinging over everyone’s head. Think of the fire hazard near that dying Christmas tree.

Happy new year, or Hogmanay, if you prefer.

Send complaints and compliments to Emmet Meara at emmetmeara@msn.com.