Origins of New Year’s Day

Since New Year’s Day falls on a Saturday this year, I’m going to use the occasion to publish a brief history of the New Year celebration. It is, after all, one of the oldest holidays in mankind, and most people make a big deal out of it.

I received this history lesson from a friend and classmate from my high school days. He says he researched it pretty thoroughly, and he gave me permission to use his work. I will attribute it to Arthur Plant, so there is no question of whom is the true author. I have added a couple of my own footnotes, however, so I’ll take credit for them.

NEW YEAR'S DAY ORIGIN

The day celebrated as New Year's Day was not always January 1, not until the Romans set it. The celebration of the new year is the oldest of all holidays. It was first observed in ancient Babylon about 4000 years ago.

The Babylonian New Year began with the first New Moon after the Vernal Equinox (first day of spring). The beginning of spring is a logical time to start a new year. It is considered the season of rebirth, of planting new crops, and of blossoming. January 1, on the other hand, has no astronomical nor agricultural significance. It is purely arbitrary. The Babylonian New Year celebration lasted for eleven days. Each day had its own particular mode of celebration, but it is safe to say that modern New Year's Eve festivities pale in comparison.

The Romans continued to observe the new year in late March, but various emperors continually tampered with their calendar so that the calendar soon became out of synchronization 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. However tampering continued until Julius Caesar, in 46 BC, established what has come to be known as the Julian Calendar. It again established January 1 as 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.

Footnote: I’ve always wondered how those ancient people kept track of dates. Did they have a calendar that showed 46 BC on it? And was 46 BC the longest year in history? Did Biblical people like Methuselah and Noah really live hundreds of OUR years? Their calendars were certainly different from ours, and they must have used a much shorter year. And yet Stonehenge and other ruins from antiquity seem to indicate observation of a solar year very similar to ours. It’s all very puzzling.

THE CHURCH'S VIEW OF NEW YEAR'S CELEBRATIONS

Although in the first centuries 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 Years is still observed as the Feast of Christ's Circumcision by some denominations. During the Middle Ages, the Church remained opposed to celebrating New Years. January 1 has been celebrated as a holiday by Western nations for only about the past 400 years.

NEW YEAR'S TRADITIONS

Other traditions of the season include the making of New Year's resolutions. That tradition also dates back to the early Babylonians. While popular modern resolutions might include the promise to lose weight or quit smoking, the early Babylonian's most popular resolution was to return borrowed farm equipment.

The tradition of using a baby to signify the new year was begun in Greece 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 practice as pagan, the popularity of the baby as a symbol of rebirth forced the Church to reevaluate 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 Years banner as a symbolic representation of the new year was brought to early America by the Germans. They had used the effigy since the fourteenth century.

Second Footnote: Here's a real puzzler for you, one that I've wondered about for most of my life. What happened to the 33 years between BC and AD?