New Years Eve New Years Eve Traditions
New Year’s Eve traditions have been around since Babylon times. Today traditions vary. My dad ate pickled creamed hearing New Year’s Eve for prosperity in the coming year. Some people plan lavish parties to say goodbye to one year and hello to the next with family and friends. Others will work through New Year’s Eve because it is just another night to them. New Year’s Eve traditions date back to the Babylonians who celebrated the New Year in the
spring with the first new moon (Vernal Equinox). It was an 11-day celebration with each day having its own unique mode of celebration.
The calendar changed over the decades until the Julian calendar, which is commonly used today was synchronized with the sun. It has been in use since 46 BC and begins the New Year on January 1.
Today’s New Year’s Eve traditions include the following:
- Making New Year’s resolutions
- Old man represents year that is passing and a baby represents the New Year
- Eating circular food (all comes full circle in the new year)
- Bring luck in new year by eating black-eyed peas or other legumes
- Hogs represent prosperity, so eating pork is suppose to bring prosperity
- Eating rice or cabbage for luck and prosperity
- Singing “Auld Lang Syne” (translates “old long ago” or “the good old days”) by Robert Burns
Businesses cash in on New Year’s Eve resolutions with sales on related products and services at the end of the year and beginning of the year. A common New Year’s resolution it to loose weight so diet and weight loss products and services often are on sale.
Families often create their own New Year’s Eve traditions that may include parties or phone calls. Some families who have relatives in different time zones can get several calls throughout the evening.
Even those who aren’t into the partying and crowds of New Year’s Eve celebrations at people’s homes and at bars, will watch the ball drop at Times Square in New York on TV. Watching the fireworks and other traditions of foreign countries on TV is another New Year’s Eve traditions.
It doesn’t matter if a New Year’s Eve traditional is one that has been passed down or is a new and unique one celebrated for the first time New Year’s Eve traditions define the holiday.
