Rounding up New Year’s traditions
Ready for some New Year’s trivia?
The start of the new year has always been on Jan. 1. It wasn’t until 46 B. C. when Julius Caesar developed a calendar that more accurately reflected the seasons that Jan. 1 became the start of the new year.
The Romans named the first month after Janus, the god of beginnings and of entrances.
Janus is depicted as having two faces on facing forward and the other backward. He could look forward to the new year and reflect over the old one.
However, this calendar wasn’t perfect and by 1582 it was about 10 days off, so Pope Gregory XIII reformed the Julian Ca-lendar to what we have today.
However, during the Middle Ages Christians actually celebrated New Year’s Day on March 25. Ancient Babylonians celebrated New Years Day on March 23 although they had no written calendar.
Even today not all cultures celebrate New Years on the same day; for example the Chinese use a lunar calendar and celebrate New Years sometime between Jan. 1 and Feb. 17.
Jewish people celebrate two New Years and Hindu people celebrate four New Years at the beginning of each of the four seasons. The people of Iran celebrate the new year for 13 days in spring.
There are many and varied traditions all over the world to that are meant to celebrate the new year and bring good luck.
The New Year is Scotland is called Hogmanay.
They take barrels of tar and set them on fire and roll them down the street in villages across the country. (No, I don’t make this stuff up!)
The idea of the symbolizing the New Year as a baby started about 600 B. C. by the ancient Greeks. They would carry a baby around in a basket to honor Dionysus, the God of Fertility.
In Greece, children leave their shoes by the fireside on New Years Day in hopes that Saint Basil who was known for his kindness will come and fill their shoes with gifts. In Greece this is known as the Festival of Saint Basil.
Many cultures believe that eating certain foods on New Year’s Day will bring good luck.
The Dutch, for example, eat donuts for that very reason.
The hog and its meat and cabbage are considered lucky in many cultures. In the United States, hog jowls or ham and black eyed peas are considered to be lucky.
There is one tradition that is of American origin. It began in 1907 and is now viewed by over one million people. Can you guess what it is? I’ll give you a hint. It is spherical and the first one weighed more than 700 pounds and was 5-ft. in diameter. It was made of iron and wood and had over 100 25-watt light bulbs.
It is the Ball Lowering Ceremony in Times Square.
I hope you have a very blessed New Year!
