handsel
hansel
handsell BrE

And now by such illumination, jubilee, dancing and fire-working, do we joyously handsel the new Social Edifice, and first raise heat and reek there, in the name of Hope.

The television, which normally hansel led in the first of January, was blank and silent in the corner.

In the run-up to next month's Twickenham showdown, discussions are understood to be taking place on the staging of a floodlit fixture to officially hansel the completed Murrayfield super-stadium in the autumn of 1994.

Certainly there is Biblical precedent for splashing out on special occasions - Martha's anointing of Jesus with the expensive ointment could easily be used as a justification for spraying around a little champagne to hansel a special occasion.