New Year - January 1, the Gregorian calendar New Year, origins, and how it is observed worldwide

New Year on January 1 marks the start of the Gregorian calendar year. It is a public holiday in essentially every country that uses the Gregorian calendar, observed with midnight countdown, fireworks, family gatherings, and the ritual of New Years resolutions.

The one-line summary

Civil New Year on January 1, fixed by the Gregorian reform of 1582 and adopted globally over the 16th-20th centuries. A public holiday in nearly every country that uses the Gregorian calendar. Observed with midnight countdown, fireworks, and family gatherings.

Origin

January 1 as the start of the year is a Roman innovation. The earliest Roman calendar (traditionally attributed to Romulus, ca. 753 BC) began in March and had only ten months. The second king of Rome, Numa Pompilius, added January and February around 713 BC, but the civil year still started in March for centuries.

The Julian calendar, introduced by Julius Caesar in 46 BC and refined by Augustus, formalized January 1 as the start of the year. The Roman god Janus - depicted with two faces, one looking back and one looking forward - gave his name to the month. Roman political culture treated January 1 as the date when consuls took office, when debts were settled, and when gifts were exchanged; the poet Ovid described the practice in his Fasti.

With the Christianization of the Roman Empire, the ecclesiastical year began to dominate civic and religious life. The Council of Tours in 567 AD effectively endorsed a year that ran from Christmas (December 25) to Christmas, and much of medieval Europe celebrated the new year on December 25, March 25 (the Feast of the Annunciation), or Easter. The Jewish calendar year began in autumn (Rosh Hashanah, 1 Tishrei).

The Gregorian reform of 1582, promulgated by Pope Gregory XIII, restored January 1 as the start of the civil year as part of correcting the Julian drift. Catholic countries (Italy, Spain, Portugal, Poland) adopted it within months; Protestant countries took longer - England and its American colonies did not adopt the Gregorian calendar until September 1752, when the British Calendar (New Style) Act skipped 11 days and moved the new year to January 1. Russia did not adopt until 1918, after the revolution; Greece followed in 1923. By the 20th century, January 1 as New Year was effectively standardized across the world.

When it falls

January 1 every year, by definition. The day of the week rotates through the calendar. The holiday is technically a single day but the practical observance window stretches from late December 27 (when many workplaces and schools wind down) to January 6 (Epiphany / Twelfth Night in many Christian traditions). In some countries January 2 is also a public holiday; in Scotland and parts of northern England, January 2 is a bank holiday called 2nd January.

For countries that observe other calendar systems alongside the Gregorian, New Year sits among several new year observances: the Chinese / Vietnamese Lunar New Year (late January to mid-February), the Hindu new year (varies by region - Gudi Padwa in Maharashtra, Ugadi in Andhra Pradesh, Pohela Boishakh in Bengal, Vishu in Kerala, all in March or April), the Persian Nowruz (March 20-21), the Thai Songkran (April 13-15), the Islamic Hijri new year (moves each year), the Jewish Rosh Hashanah (September or October), and the Ethiopian Enkutatash (September 11).

How it is observed

New Year is observed in three overlapping patterns: countdown, gathering, and renewal.

The countdown - the televised or in-person ritual of counting down from ten to zero at midnight December 31 - became a global phenomenon in the 20th century, anchored by major fireworks displays in Sydney (the first major city to ring in the new year due to its timezone), Auckland, Tokyo, Beijing, Bangkok, Dubai (notably the Burj Khalifa display), Moscow, Berlin, London (the London Eye and Thames display), Paris (Champs-Elysees), New York (the Times Square ball drop, in continuous operation since 1907), Rio de Janeiro (Copacabana, with an estimated 2 million people on the beach), and Cape Town. Each display is choreographed around a major landmark and broadcast globally; Times Square alone draws an estimated 1 million in-person attendees and roughly 100 million US broadcast viewers.

The gathering - a large meal, party, or family get-together on the night of December 31, often with toasts, sparkling wine, and special foods. Country-specific foods carry symbolic weight: lentils and pork in Italy (the lentils for coins, the pork for progress), twelve grapes in Spain (one eaten at each stroke of midnight, for luck in each month), king cake in the US Gulf South, soba noodles in Japan (long life), collard greens and black-eyed peas in the US South (coins and luck), round fruits in the Philippines (roundness for coins).

The renewal - New Years resolutions, religious services, and first-footing visits. In the US roughly 40% of adults make a New Years resolution, with the top resolutions consistently being exercise, diet, financial savings, and mental health. Midnight religious services are common in many Christian traditions; the Catholic Church holds a solemn Mass for the Solemnity of Mary on January 1, which is also a Holy Day of Obligation in many dioceses. The Scottish Hogmanay tradition includes first-footing, where the first person to cross a homes threshold after midnight brings symbolic luck (coal, bread, salt, whisky).

Legal status

New Year is a public holiday in essentially every country that uses the Gregorian calendar. In the United States it is one of 11 federal holidays under 5 U.S.C. section 6103; federal offices, banks, USPS, NYSE, and NASDAQ close. The federal holiday name is "New Years Day". In the United Kingdom it is a bank holiday under the Banking and Financial Dealings Act 1971. In Germany it is a gesetzlicher Feiertag (statutory holiday) nationwide. In Canada it is a statutory holiday under federal labour law, with optional retail closing by province. In India it is a gazetted holiday under the Negotiable Instruments Act. In China it is a statutory public holiday, usually combined with the Lunar New Year into a 7-day Spring Festival block.

Where it is contested

New Year is unusually uncontroversial as a civic observance. The contested questions are downstream: how much of the workforce gets the day off, whether midnight services should be allowed to overlap with secular revelry, and whether other calendar systems deserve equal recognition alongside the Gregorian. In the United States the federal holiday applies to federal workers but many retail, hospitality, and healthcare workers work on January 1; the annual debate over retail worker holiday scheduling tends to focus on Christmas, with New Year often overlooked.

In other countries

Beyond the six countries covered by Holiday Brief, New Year is observed with varying intensity worldwide. Notable national traditions: Brazil wears white for peace and jumps seven waves at the beach; Denmark throws plates at neighbors doors (more plates = more friends); Greece hangs a pomegranate above the door and smashes it for luck; Switzerland drops ice cream on the floor for abundance; Estonia eats seven meals on New Years Eve (one for each day of strength in the new year); Japan eats soba noodles at midnight; the Philippines wears polka-dots for coins and serves round fruits; Turkey smashes pomegranates at the door.

New Year's Day by the numbers

Sources

• Pope Gregory XIII, Inter gravissimas, 1582 (the papal bull establishing the Gregorian reform).
• B.J. Blackburn and L. Holford-Strevens, The Oxford Companion to the Year, Oxford University Press, 1999.
• 5 U.S.C. section 6103 (US federal holidays statute).
• Banking and Financial Dealings Act 1971 (UK bank holidays statute).
• National Retail Federation, annual New Years Eve spending survey.
• Times Square Alliance, official New Years Eve program history.