New Year

In countries which use the Gregorian calendar, New Year is usually celebrated on January 1.

The celebration of New Year is a major celebration worldwide even in countries with their own New Year celebrations (e.g., China and India). Let's look at some of the key points about New Year:

1. The New Year has not always begun on January 1, and it doesn't begin on that date everywhere today. It begins on that date only for cultures that use a 365-day solar calendar. January 1 became the beginning of the New Year in 46 B.C., when Julius Caesar developed a calendar that would more accurately reflect the seasons than previous calendars had.

2. The Romans named the first month of the year after Janus, a mythical king of early Rome, the god of beginnings and the guardian of doors and entrances. He was always depicted with two faces, one on the front of his head and one on the back. Thus he could look backward and forward at the same time.

3. In the Middle Ages, Christians changed New Year's Day to December 25, the birth of Jesus. Then they changed it to March 25, a holiday called the Annunciation. In the sixteenth century, Pope Gregory XIII revised the Julian calendar, and the celebration of the New Year was returned to January 1.

4. The Julian and Gregorian calendars are solar calendars. Some cultures have lunar calendars, which is less than 365 days because the months are based on the phases of the moon. The Chinese use a lunar calendar. Their new year begins at the time of the first full moon (over the Far East) after the sun enters Aquarius- sometime between January 19 and February 21.

5. The most famous song sung during New Year is Auld Lang Syne which is a Scottish folk song which literally means "old long ago," or simply, "the good old days." Written by Robert Burns in 1741, it was first published in 1796 after Burns' death. The song, "Auld Lang Syne," is sung at the stroke of midnight in almost every English- speaking country in the world to bring in the New Year. In spite of the popularity of 'Auld Lang Syne', it has aptly been described as the song that nobody knows. Hardly a gathering sings it correctly (even in Scotland) without some members of the party butchering the words.