Thanks, in part, to the decent weather and the absence of snow of the ground, hundreds of people turned out Saturday, Dec. 31, to the Lawrence Historical Society's Hogmanay Bonfire in the meadow next to the historic Brearley House to bid farewell to 2011 and welcome 2012.

The bonfire has been a tradition for the Lawrence Historical Society since 1997.

Hogmanay is a Scottish New Year's Eve tradition at which participants celebrate the arrival of the new year and cleanse themselves of all the bad experiences of the previous year. One of the ways Hogmanay participants do this is by writing a list of the bad things from the past year that they want to forget.

On Saturday, bonfire attendees were invited to toss their lists into the flames so the paper – and the bad memories written on them – would be consumed. A bagpiper played as the flames raged.

Snow forced the historical society to postpone the previous year’s bonfire from Dec. 31, 2010, to Jan. 8, 2011.