By KAREN E. BROWN
Contributing Writer
On Jan. 1, it's New Years, a time when many people take stock of their lives and see it as a chance to let go of the past and start over.
They look back on what they have accomplished in the past year and look forward to what they hope to achieve in the next 12 months.
Some of them will even make New Years resolutions to change their behavior by pledging either to break bad habits or to acquire good habits.
Many people will also gather together the night before to patiently watch and then cheer at the stroke of midnight, as the old year gives way to the new year.
What then is the story behind New Year's, the holiday that specifically celebrates change and the passage of time?
As the oldest of all holidays, New Year's began by being linked to certain astrological and agricultural events.
The ancient Hebrews observed their new year called Rosh Ha-Shanah, around the time of the Fall Equinox, while the Celts celebrated their new year at Samhain, the time of their final fall harvest that would eventually be better known as Halloween.
The early Egyptians began their new year with the annual spring flooding of the Nile River and the start of planting season.
At spring equinox the Babylonians held a 12-day New Years celebration that represented the twelve months of the year as symbolized by the 12 astrological signs of the Zodiac, beginning with Aries the Ram.
The Babylonians were also the first people known to make New Year's resolutions.
The Persians, who also celebrated their new year during spring equinox gave out eggs as presents to promote fertility, a tradition that would be passed on down to Easter.
Finally at winter solstice, the northern European holiday of Yule and the Roman observance of Saturnalia, both later associated with Christmas, were originally held as New Year's celebrations.
As a point in time, New Year's was also determined by the development of the calendar.
The word “year” was actually derived from the name “Yule,” which literally meant “wheel.”
Those people who celebrated Yule, conceived time as being an endless annual cycle of birth, growth, death, and rebirth that they referred to as the “Wheel of the Year.”
To represent that concept at New Years, the people took a remnant of the old Yule Log that had been burned the year before and used it to light the new Yule Log, as marking the transitional “turning of the wheel” of going from one yearly cycle to another.
The word “calendar” was derived from “Calends,” the name the Romans gave to the beginning of every month, including Jan. 1, which they would eventually set as the date for celebrating their new year.
The month of January was named after Janus, the Roman god of beginnings and endings, who was also the guardian protector of entrances and exits leading into and out of the home.
As a most appropriate symbol for New Years, Janus was portrayed as having two faces that simultaneously looked in opposite directions – one face that looked backward into the past, while the other face looked forward into the future.
The Greek god Chronos, who was adopted by the Romans and renamed as their god Saturn, would eventually become the modern day image for “Father Time.”
The Romans also borrowed the Greek god Dionysus, celebrated as the Divine Child, who nowadays is identified as “Baby New Year.”
In ancient times, many people used New Year's as the holiday to perform rituals of self-purification and to spiritually as well as physically clean their houses.
They often used noisemakers, such as horns, bells, rattles, whistles, and drums during New Year's celebrations to drive away evil spirits.
Since medieval times, churches and cathedrals throughout Europe have used their bells at the stroke of midnight to literally “ring in the New Year.”
Although nowadays it's considered a Christmas custom, gift-giving actually started out as a New Year's tradition. Among the Celts, Druid priests and priestesses distributed sprigs of mistletoe as good luck charms to provide protection and promote prosperity for the coming year.
The Romans at New Year's not only gave out gold coins imprinted with the image of Janus but also wreaths of bay or laurel leaves to bring in victory and success.
During the Victorian era, English husbands on New Year's Day often presented to their wives small sums of cash, called “pin money,” so that the wives could purchase for themselves pieces of jewelry and other small items.
In colonial times, people in New England celebrated the New Year by attending special church services, visiting local taverns, or holding open houses.
Today, many Americans go to New Year's Eve parties, where at the stroke of midnight, they drink a toast to the New Year with glasses of champagne and sing “Auld Lang Syne,” an old Scottish song, meaning, “days gone by,” with words that have been attributed to the poet, Robert Burns.
So here's wishing all of you a happy, healthy, and prosperous New Year!
Reader Comments(0)