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New Year’s celebrations are not a new thing. Many of the traditions we celebrate started long ago. See some of these interesting facts about New Year’s.
The earliest recorded festivities in honor of a new year’s arrival date back some 4,000 years to ancient Babylon.
Auld Lang Syne is a Scottish folk song made famous in America by Canadian bandleader Guy Lombardo in the late 1920s.
Champagne production skyrocketed from 300,000 to 20 million bottles per year between 1800 and 1850, as the world started ordering more for ship christenings and New Year’s celebrations.
Kissing someone at midnight is said to come from the idea that doing so will prevent loneliness during the coming year and ward off evil spirits.
Ancient Romans are credited with the kissing tradition because of their Saturnalia festival. It was a celebration honoring Saturn, the god of time.
The island nation Kiribati in the Central Pacific is the first location to ring in the new year each year.
American Samoa is the second to last place to celebrate the new year behind Baker and Howland Islands, which are both uninhabited.
If you’ve ever spent December 31st at home on your couch, you’ve probably seen New Year’s Rockin’ Eve, the show Dick Clark hosted for twenty-four years until suffering a stroke. He often co-hosted in later years with Ryan Seacrest until he died in 2012. Seacrest continues to host the show.
The most common resolution people make is to get healthier.
Each year, it is estimated that 80 percent of New Year’s resolutions are abandoned by February.
Celebrating the first baby of the New Year has been a symbol of the holiday since around 600 B.C., starting in ancient Greece when an infant was paraded around in a basket in celebration of Dionysus, the god of fertility (and wine). The baby represents a rebirth.