“HAPPY NEW YEAR!” is the greeting that will be said and heard for at least the first couple of weeks as a new year gets underway.New Year’s Day is the oldest of all holidays, but the day celebrated was not always January 1.

The celebration of the New Year was first observed in ancient Babylon about 4000 years ago. The Babylonian New Year began with the first visible crescent after the first day of spring.
January 1 has neither astronomical nor agricultural significance, and is purely arbitrary. The beginning of spring, however, is a logical time to start a new year. After all, it is the season of rebirth, of planting new crops, and of blossoming.
Babylonian New Year celebration lasted eleven days, and each day had its own particular mode of celebration; so, it is safe to say that modern New Year’s Eve festivities pale in comparison to Babylonian New Year celebrations.
The Romans continued to observe the New Year in late March, but their calendar was continually altered by various emperors, so that the calendar soon became out of ‘sync’ with the sun.
In order to set the calendar right, the Roman Senate, in 153 BC, declared January 1 to be the beginning of the New Year. But changes continued until Julius Caesar, in 46 BC, established what has come to be known as the Julian Calendar, which again established January 1 as the beginning of the New Year.
But in order to synchronize the calendar with the sun, Caesar had to let the previous year drag on for 445 days.

The Church’s view of New Year’s celebrations

Although in the first century AD, the Romans continued celebrating the New Year, the early Catholic Church condemned the festivities as paganism. But as Christianity became more widespread, the early Church began having its own religious observances concurrently with many of the pagan celebrations, and New Year’s Day was no different.
New Year’s is still observed as the Feast of Christ’s Circumcision by some denominations. During the Middle Ages, the Church remained opposed to celebrating New Year’s. January 1 has been celebrated as a holiday by Western nations for only about the past 400 years.

New Year Traditions

The early Babylonians’ most popular resolution was to return borrowed farm equipment. Popular modern resolutions might include the promise to lose weight or quit smoking.

The ‘baby’

The tradition of using a baby to signify the New Year was begun in Greece at around 600 BC. It was their tradition at that time to celebrate their god of wine, Dionysus, by parading a baby in a basket, representing the annual rebirth of that god as the spirit of fertility. Early Egyptians also used a baby as a symbol of rebirth.
Although the early Christians denounced the practise as pagan, the popularity of the baby as a symbol of rebirth forced the Church to re-evaluate its position. The Church finally allowed its members to celebrate the New Year with a baby, which was to symbolize the birth of the Baby Jesus.
The use of an image of a baby with a New Year’s banner as a symbolic representation of the New Year was brought to early America by the Germans. They had used the effigy since the 14th Century.

For luck in the New Year

Traditionally, it was thought that one could affect the luck one would have throughout the coming year by what one did or ate on the first day of the year. For that reason, it has become common for folks to celebrate the first few minutes of a brand new year in the company of family and friends. Parties often last into the morning, after the ringing in of a new year.
It was once believed that the first visitor on New Year’s Day would bring either good or bad luck for the rest of the year. It was particularly lucky if that visitor happened to be a tall, dark-haired man.
Traditional New Year foods are also thought to bring luck. Many cultures believe that anything in the shape of a ring is good luck, because it symbolizes “coming full circle”, completing a year’s cycle. For that reason, the Dutch believe that eating doughnuts on New Year’s Day will bring good fortune.
Black-eyed peas and other legumes have been considered good luck in many cultures. Many parts of the U.S. celebrate the New Year by consuming black-eyed peas. In Guyana, we consume “cook-up” , a dish made of rice; meat; coconut milk; and black-eyed peas, red-peas or split peas.

Toasting

One of the most venerable New Year’s traditions is the champagne toast at midnight to ring in the New Year. Toasting can be traced back to the ancient Romans and Greeks, who would pour from a common pitcher wine to be shared among those attending a religious function. The host would drink first, to assure his guests that the wine was not poisoned.
Poisoning the wine was a fairly common practise in ancient times, and it was designed to do away with one’s enemies. In those days, the wine was not as refined as it is today; so a square of burned bread (toast) would be floated in the wine bowl, and then eaten by the last person to drink. The bread was put there to absorb the extra acidity of the wine in order to make it more palatable.
Eventually, the act of drinking in unison came to be called a toast, from the act of “toasting” or putting toast into the wine.

Auld Lang Syne

The song, “Auld Lang Syne”, is sung at the stroke of midnight in almost every English-speaking country in the world. The intent is to bring in the New Year.
At least partially written by Robert Burns in the 1700s, it was first published in 1796 after Burns’s death. Early variations of the song were sung prior to 1700, and inspired Burns to produce the modern rendition.
An old Scottish tune, “Auld Lang Syne” literally means “Old Long Ago,” or simply, “The Good Old Days.”

Source: http://wilstar.com/holidays/newyear.htm
Written By Michelle Gonsalves