New Year's levee
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A New Year's levée is a social event on New Year's Day hosted by the Governor General of Canada, the lieutenant governors, military establishments, municipalities, and other institutions.
Rob Ford with Toronto Civic Employees War Veterans Honour Guard at the Mayor of Toronto's New Year's levee in 2011.
Levee (ceremony)
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The levee was traditionally a daily moment of intimacy and accessibility to a monarch or leader, as he got up in the morning. It started out as a royal custom, but in British America it came to refer to a reception by the sovereign's representative, which continues to be a tradition in Canada with the New Year's levee; in the United States a similar gathering was held by several presidents.
Charles Wild (1816) St James's Palace, Queen's Levee Room
The second scene of William Hogarth's A Rake's Progress (1732-33) showing the wealthy Tom at his morning levée in London, attended by musicians and other hangers-on all dressed in expensive costumes. Surrounding Tom from left to right: a music master at a harpsichord, who was supposed to represent George Frideric Handel; a fencing master; a quarterstaff instructor; a dancing master with a violin; a landscape gardener Charles Bridgeman; an ex-soldier offering to be a bodyguard; a bugler of a
Le Lever, engraving by Louis Romanet (1742–1810), after Sigmund Freudenberg (1745-1801)