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New Year's Eve

Days left:
New Year's Eve falls on 31.12.2024 (Tuesday)
The date of New Year's Eve in other years:
New Year's Eve 2023 - 31.12.2023 (Sunday)
New Year's Eve 2025 - 31.12.2025 (Wednesday)
New Year's Eve 2026 - 31.12.2026 (Thursday)

New Year's Eve

Before everyone can wish “Happy New Year” to one another, there is the observance on December 31, which celebrates the end of the old cycle in the middle of winter. It is called New Year’s Day in the Anglophone countries, and it marks probably the most loud event in the world.

Gisborne in New Zealand is the first larger city to experience the coming year, since it is most extended to the east. Hour after hour, with every time zone, all people who live according to the Gregorian calendar step into the New Year’s Day on January 1. There are few folkloristic traditions surrounding the holiday on December 31, but an increasing number of special New Year events is held in North America and Oceania.

All end-of-the-year celebrations including Halloween, Christmas and New Year’s Eve are associated with the Celtic death holiday of Samhain and Roman winter solstice festival called Natalis Invicti. These festivities were the big parties in the middle of the cold season; people used to light up the darkest period in the year by bonfires, and nowadays they do it with fireworks. After years of using the Julian calendar, England has adopted the Gregorian calendar only in 1752. At that time, much of the Protestant belief condemned loud and drunken celebrations, which is why a holiday like New Year’s Eve could not have developed, especially in the United States, before the 20th century. It was there that the observance became prominent due to the first Times Square ball drop in 1907. With time, more and more English-speaking countries adopted the New Year’s Eve tradition.

The famous ball drop in New York has been replicated many times in other American cities; they replaced the ball, however, with items characteristic to the place, for example Strasburg, Pennsylvania drops ping pong balls. Apart from this prominent event, there also used to be broadcasted a big band performance of the Royal Canadians from the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, lead by Guy Lombardo. These concerts had been held annually between 1956 and 1976, and Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve succeeded them as the new holiday special on ABC.

In Canada, the most popular TV programs of the day are comedic strips by Royal Canadian Air Farce and Bye Bye, which is all in French. Apart from big firework celebrations throughout the country, some citizens choose to go ice fishing on the night of December 31.

In Australia, the biggest and most prominent New Year’s event takes place in Sydney, where two firework displays are presented: one for families at 9 o’clock p.m. and the other, traditionally, at midnight. Many Australians like to spend the night on a yacht or a party boat. That is also the case in New Zealand, where apart from many evening happenings, there are also famous cricket matches held in the afternoon.

Although New Year’s Eve is not a federal or public holiday in either of the countries listed above, employees in many places organize themselves a half-day in order to prepare for celebrations in the night. December 31 is the closing time for the old year. After midnight, the new will usher in, and with it, fresh opportunities and New Year’s resolutions. The prominent symbol of New Year’s Eve is champagne, which is associated with toasts and best wishes. All revelers wish each other a “Happy New Year”, which gives the promise of an improved life.

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