Why do we celebrate New Year's? | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Kathy Manos Penn is a native of the “Big Apple,” who settled in the “Peach City” – Atlanta. A former English teacher now happily retired from a corporate career in communications, she writes a weekly column for the Dunwoody Crier and the Highlands Newspaper. Read her blogs and columns and purchase her books, “The Ink Penn: Celebrating the Magic in the Everyday” and “Lord Banjo the Royal Pooch,” on her website theinkpenn.com or Amazon.

    Most of us celebrate New Year's somehow, someway, but I suspect few of us are aware of the holiday's history. As you would expect, a wealth of information is but a few clicks away. Until I started surfing, I didn't know how ancient the holiday was and didn't realize that it hadn't always fallen on January 1.

    The holiday originated as an eleven-day festival that began on the first day of Spring in ancient Babylon. The solar and lunar cycles were used together to establish the first day of Spring, and while it was a time of new beginnings, it was more tied to nature than to resolutions. And without a calendar, the festival was held in a general time frame rather than on an exact date.

    You can thank Julius Caesar for establishing January 1 as New Year's Day. When he decided that the Roman calendar wasn't working well, he went to an Alexandrian astronomer for input. He was encouraged to follow the solar year, resulting in a shift to a 365-day calendar. It was Julius Caesar who came up with the idea for what we call leap year: adding an extra day to February every fourth year. The Julian calendar (named after Julius Caesar, of course) took effect in 45 B.C., with January 1 as the "new" date for New Year's merriment.

    The timing of the observance may have changed, but the festivities were still largely pagan, celebrating nature and earth's cycles. As Christianity took hold, the day became more religious.

    How did we get from religious observance to the often raucous December 31st events we see today? Through the years, the religious overtones fell away, and January 1 became more secular-a time to honor friendships, to reflect, and to look ahead. Hence, the idea of having a New Year's resolution.

    In the 1700's and 1800's, the American colonies still adhered to a more religious commemoration of the holiday, while Europeans were more focused on feasting and parties. Come the early 1900s, America began to shift toward the European way, and New Year's Eve parties started cropping up. It was 1907 when the first Ball Drop took place in Times Square, and the ball has dropped ever since, except during World War II.

    Nowadays, it's not just NYC that has big public events or something resembling a ball drop. Raleigh, NC drops a 900-pound brass acorn; Strasburg, PA drops ping pong balls; Harrisburg, PA drops a giant strawberry; and, here in Atlanta, GA, we drop a giant peach.

    We've come to expect partying and champagne toasts on December 31st as we welcome the New Year, but a bit of introspection also comes into play with the tradition of making a New Year's resolution or two or three.

    As for the actual day, January 1, there are traditions aplenty as to what to eat and what to do. Most Southerners know about eating greens and blackeyed peas, veggies that symbolize money. You might also have heard that what you do on January 1 is what you'll do the rest of the year. So, eating right and exercising could be good things. Doing yard work, ironing, or washing clothes? Maybe not so much. I expect the activities at my house to be a combination of taking down Christmas decorations and watching football.

    No matter how you choose to spend your holiday, may you have a happy, healthy New Year.

    Kathy Manos Penn is a Sandy Springs resident. Her latest book, "Lord Banjo the Royal Pooch," and her collection of columns, "The Ink Penn: Celebrating the Magic in the Everyday," are available on Amazon. Follow her on Facebook to catch all the latest: https://www.facebook.com/KathyManosPennAuthor/