Bonne Annee! Shana Tova! Manigong Bagong Taon! Feliz Año Nuevo! Happy New Year!
For thousands of years, people have celebrated the New Year around the world, but the festivities do not always take place on January 1. Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, typically takes place in the month of September, while February 14 marks Chinese New Year in 2010. Iranians celebrate New Year, or Noruz, on March 21, the first day of spring. Regardless of when the celebration occurs, people from all cultural and religious backgrounds follow particular traditions to guarantee health and prosperity in the New Year.
Although it might seem logical to celebrate the New Year in the spring, when the earth is reborn, the establishment of the Julian calendar in 46 B.C. deemed January 1, the first day of the New Year. In 1582 when Pope Gregory created the Gregorian calendar, he reaffirmed this date, which is now widely used throughout the world, yet only dates back approximately 400 years as a celebration for Western Nations. During the Middle Ages, few non-religious festivities marked the date, due to strong opposition from the Catholic Church.
New Year’s superstitions abound and cross cultures, most of which arose out of the desire to guarantee good fortune and prosperity in the coming year. The slightest instance of luck, good or bad, on New Year’s Day carries more than its usual significance, as it symbolizes the character of the entire New Year. Many people attempt to affect their destiny in the coming year through their actions on the first day of the year.
The importance of new beginnings holds great sway in Ireland, a country rich with New Year’s traditions. Margaret Kelly’s mother, Mary, grew up in County Mayo, Ireland. When Mary was a girl, their neighbor, a man, was always the first visitor to their house on New Year’s Day. The Irish believe that the nature of the first person to cross your threshold on New Year's day determines the luck of the coming year, a tradition called “first footing,” popular throughout the British Isles. It was particularly fortunate if the first visitor to enter your home was a tall, dark-haired man, but beware of a red haired lady as the first foot in your door, or someone whose eyebrows meet across the nose, for they are bad omens.
The tradition followed Kelly’s mother to America, where the visits were long distance. “My uncle would always be the first person to call us on New Year’s Day,” recalls Kelly. “Even though my aunt was usually the one that called throughout the rest of the year, on New Year’s Day, the first call had to come from a man. And, my mom made sure that one of my brothers answered the phone.”
Ali Shirazi grew up in Tehran, Iran, where his family practiced a tradition similar to first footing. “I remember that the oldest person in the house, my dad, would leave the house for a few minutes on New Year’s Day,” says Shirazi. “He would reenter while my mom held the holy book, the Quran, above the door, so that he would be purified and bring good luck to our household in the coming year.”
Kelly says that her mother never cleaned the house or washed the dishes on January 1. “The belief was that whatever you do first on New Year’s Day, you will end up doing that for the rest of the year,” says Kelly. “So, if you clean on January 1, you’ll end up cleaning for the whole entire year.”
Some believe the consumption of specific foods on New Year’s Day brings luck. “We have to eat 12 round fruits to signify 12 months of wealth,” says Mary Anne Aculli, a resident of the Philippines.
Many cultures believe that anything in the shape of a circle is good luck, because it symbolizes the completion of a year's cycle. “Some parts of Italy have imported from Spain the habit of counting down the last 12 seconds of the year by eating a grape every second (12 in total) to symbolize the 12 months of the new year,” says Lorenzo Cavallaro, who grew up in Padua, Italy.
“You have to eat black eyed peas on New Year’s Day to have luck through the year,” says Mary Works of Dallas, TX. Works prepares them with chunks of ham, a symbol of prosperity. The tradition, followed by many people throughout the southern United States, began during the Civil War. Southern troops subsisted on the legume, since northern troops considered it animal feed, and did not bother to carry it away or destroy it. “I also love cold black eyed peas, mixed with oil, vinegar and garlic salt,” says Works. “We call them Texas caviar.”
New Year’s Eve celebrations originated because of the importance attached to the people with whom one spent the first moments of the New Year. For that reason, celebrants feel compelled to welcome the New Year in the company of family and friends. The early Catholic Church condemned ancient Roman New Year’s festivities as pagan, a characterization that would apply to many of the parties found around the world today. Parties often last into the middle of the night after the ringing in of a New Year. Like the Romans, some revelers indulge in alcoholic excess as a way of erasing the worries of the previous year.
At the stroke of midnight, partiers kiss loved ones, toast the coming year with wishes of health and prosperity, blow noisemakers, and watch fireworks. Thought to dispel evil spirits, the tradition of making loud noises began in ancient times. “We have the tradition, especially in the south of Italy, of throwing on the floor and breaking a number of old plates and glasses with the purpose of sending away all the evil that accumulated during the past year,” says Cavallaro. “This occurs at midnight.”
Revelers in almost every English speaking country around the world sing "Auld Lang Syne" to ring in the New Year; written by Scot Robert Burns in the mid-1700s, and considered one of the most popular songs that no one knows the words to. The tune dates back to an old Scottish tune, and "Auld Lang Syne" means "the good old days," or “times gone by.” The song’s lyrics are a promise to remember people of the past with fondness. In 1929, at the stroke of midnight during a New Year's Eve party at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City, bandleader Guy Lombardo played the song, thus popularizing it for future generations. Lombardo ingrained his version of the song as a New Year's tradition when he played it every New Year's Eve from the 1930s until 1976 at the Waldorf Astoria; radio and television stations relayed it across the nation, thereby solidifying its place in our society.
Over one million people gather to watch the New Year City ball make its one-minute drop into Times Square, a ritual that began in 1907. At exactly midnight, the Waterford Crystal ball, weighing 1,070 pounds, completes its descent, as nearly one billion people worldwide watch it online and on television.
If bacchanalia marks New Year’s Eve, repentance is a characterization of New Year’s Day. The New Year arrives full of possibilities to improve oneself, thus the tradition of New Year’s resolutions. The early Christians believed in spending the first day of the New Year in quiet reflection. Resolutions today are simply a secular version of the religious vows made in the past toward spiritual perfection. The most popular resolutions are to stop smoking, lose weight, save money, and pay off debt.
Although customs and even the actual date for New Year’s celebrations vary throughout the world, the universal sentiment for the holiday is one of hope, health, happiness, and prosperity in the New Year.