Though the exchange of Christmas gifts was rare in New England,
a certain observance of New Year's Day by gifts seems to have
obtained. And we find in Judge Sewall's diary that he was greeted on
New Year's morn with a levet, or blast of trumpets, under his
window; and he celebrated the opening of the eighteenth century with
a very poor poem of his own composition, which he caused to be
recited through Boston streets by the town-crier.