A Review of the New Year's Holiday
History of January 1 Celebrations through the Ages
New Year's is an old holiday with a new face. Explore the history to understand the present, looking both backward and forward.
New Year's is, by far, this country's most venerable holiday, and this aritcle, in a review of the New Year's holiday, will discuss how it has changed throughout history a great deal, so forget about Times Square, glowing orbs, confetti, Dom, and kissing – well, maybe not the kissing. In fact, except for the last 100 years or so, New Years wasn't even celebrated in this country, at least not in the way we tend think of it.
The History of New Years
The first written account was of Babylonians welcoming in the New Year around 2000 BC with the first new moon of the Vernal Equinox (first day of spring). As time marched on, the Roman Senate, in 153 BC, declared January 1 (well, if had been a January) the brand-new super-official beginning of year, and while it had no real astronomical or agricultural significance, the date was nevertheless essentially written in stone in 46 BC with the advent of the Julian calendar. Written in stone, that is, unless one considers the confusion and general societal degradation that is collectively referred to as the Dark Ages of medieval Europe. During such dismal and fractured times New Year's celebrations were, as a whole, considered pagan and entirely unchristian-like.
Thus, randomly, throughout medieval Christian Europe, New Year's was celebrated on Dec. 25 (the birth of Jesus), March 1, March 25 (the Feast of the Annunciation), and on Easter. The 1582 Gregorian Calendar Reform attempted to restore sanity to the holiday by re-proclaiming January 1st as the official day of observation, but protestant countries were less than lukewarm to the idea. The British, for example, did not adopt the reform until 1752, and until such time She and Her American colonies celebrated the date in the more traditional and springy March.
Out with the Old; In with the New
So it is a bit of a wonder that the holiday is celebrated at all, at least as we know it. Nevertheless, it has become a showy and nostalgic time of remembrance for time past, usually accompanied by personal resolutions for betterment and the consumption of copious amounts of alcohol – not necessarily in that order. This sentimental and melancholy contemplation is most likely inherited in part from the traditions around the old Scottish folk phrase, Auld Lang Syne (time since past). The Scottish poet Robert Burns is usually given credit here, but he probably borrowed the words from popular old Scottish lure.
But there is an optimism in this country too, that better days are coming and the New Year's means, at in part, carte blanch and revitalization. There is an energy and excitement about this outlook that came to light (literally) when The New York Times then owner, Alfred Ochs produced an illuminated seven-hundred-pound iron and wood ball to be lowered from the Times Tower flagpole precisely at midnight to signal the end of 1907 and the beginning of 1908. New Year's apparently just did not have enough of the over-the-top American glitz to welcome it in because the Times Square festivities have become the world's symbolic welcome to the New Year, and cities such as Rio de Janeiro and Sydney have followed New York's lead, claiming to draw millions per year with their huge fireworks displays.
And let us not forget some of the more bizarre offshoots that have come from this holiday root. The Coney Island Polar Bear Club in New York proudly boasts that it is the oldest cold-water swimming club in this country and claims to have been sending folks into the chilly surf since 1903. And slightly less dramatic but just as strange is the annual Atlanta Peach Drop, where on New Year’s Eve an 800-pound peach – yes peach – begins its slow decent as on-lookers count down to midnight.
Thus, we celebrate because New Year's is our chance to look inward at both our own conscience and the conscience mankind, to look both backward and forward. It is no surprise then that the Romans named the month of January after their “two-faced” god, Janus. And Charles Lamb, the melancholy British author, echoes that same haunting sentiment with his famous words, “New Year's Day is every man's birthday.”
