New Year's Day
New Year's Day
Fireworks, parties with alcohol, the great count down and New Year’s resolutions: these are the most typical ways of celebrating New Year’s Eve. The day after, however, is the more important holiday. On January 1, the Western hemisphere celebrates New Year’s Day, which marks the first twenty four hours of a new Gregorian calendar year.
In most countries, it is a public holiday, during which many people rest from the previous night’s excess. There are, however, some fascinating traditions in the English-speaking cultures, such as special holiday parades and small folkloristic customs. The holiday is called differently, e.g. in Ireland bearing the name “Lá Caille” or “Lá Bliana Nua”, and in Wales “Dydd Calan”. This day is the new beginning – one has the opportunity to take advantage of it and make a change in life.
A holiday similar to the New Year celebrations had been already known in the Celtic culture as the Samhain festival, which was held around the Gregorian December 26. Early Romans had such festivities in the today’s month of March. This changed, however, in 153 BC, when the Roman New Year moved to January 1. The actual date had been in a state of flux since then, but in 1582 Pope Gregory XIII has established Gregorian calendar that restored New Year’s Day to January 1. In England, however, the date and the calendar had not been adopted until 1752; prior to that, the country celebrated the holiday on March 25.
New Year’s Day has been also named the Feast of the Circumcision, since it was expected that Jesus would be circumcised on the eighth day of his life. The holiday has been brought to the Americas and to the continent of Australia and New Zealand with the European settlers, but the colonized countries have created their own New Year traditions. Although Great Britain, Ireland, the US, Canada and Australia introduced New Year’s Day into their legal systems rather late in the 20th century, they all had celebrated and recognized the holiday as a day off long before.
All New Year’s Day celebrations begin at midnight. In the UK, the most famous sound to pronounce zero o’clock is the Big Ben chime; in Australia and Canada, the holiday begins with the most famous Sydney Harbour’s and Toronto’s gigantic firework displays with music.
After the parties and giant city concerts end, however, there comes the time for small, charming customs among the English-speaking citizens. In the US, if a baby is born on January 1, its parents are given special presents and a lot of attention from the local media. In Australia and New Zealand, cricket games and horse races (like the one at the Ascot Racecourse in Perth) gather a wider public – they are not simple sporting events, they are tradition. In the North, many Canadians decide to spend the New Year’s outdoors, particularly ice fishing.
In the UK and Ireland there is the custom of first footing, which is based on the presumption that if a household is visited by a dark-haired man in the New Year, the family will have good fortune; the opposite happens if a blonde, red-hair or a woman comes along. Another tradition in both these countries is to keep the back door open throughout the day in order to bid farewell to the old year. It is also compulsory for the household to be abundant in resources such as food and coal so as to uphold the family’s prominence. Additionally, in Wales, there is a custom reminiscent of Halloween, where children gather in groups and visit neighbors in order to sing New Year songs and receive sweets for it. All the countries described above hold annual New Year parades with prominent people participating and joyous music playing.
New Year’s Day is generally a public holiday in all abovementioned countries, which means that all institutions and businesses (with some exceptions) are bound to be closed. If the holiday falls on a weekend, the free day is moved to the next closest work day. New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia and Victoria have established commerce restrictions. Although the holiday is less pompous than the preceding New Year’s Eve, January 1 is the time of true appreciation for the new beginning. New Year’s Day is filled with small and large traditions that give it the special feeling of hope and excitement.