1. New Year’s Day

Celebrating the first day of the year on January 1 is a relatively modern practice. Caesarchanged the Roman New Year’s Day to January 1 in honor of Janus¹, the god of all beginnings and the keeper of the gates of heaven and earth. Janus was always represented with two faces, one looking back to the old year and the other looking forward to the new year. It was customary to celebrate the festival in his honor by exchanging gifts and making resolutions to be friendly and good to one another. Today, New Year’s Day is geared toward feasting and family. Almost everywhere it is a day for receiving visitors and recovering from New Year’s Eve festivities. Watching football games is often part of the day.

January 1st is also known as Emancipation Day. During the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln issued a preliminary proclamation to free slaves in states and parts of states “in rebellion against the United States”. The Emancipation Proclamation became effective on January 1, 1863. After the signing of the proclamation, Emancipation Day was observed on January 1 in many areas of the United States. Emancipation celebrations began to diminish by the 1950s and 1960s, when the emphasis was on gaining civil rights and equality. When Emancipation Day is observed today, parades and speeches highlight the importance of freedom.

The Dutch who came to settle in New York introduced the custom of making calls on New Year’s Day, and by the 1840s, visiting on New Year’s Day was a widespread practice among the middle classes in America. Gentlemen arrived with engraved calling cards, and women set out beautifully decorated tables full of food and served coffee or whiskey punch. This custom continues in the popular “open house” parties held on New Year’s today.

Perhaps no pastime is as closely identified with New Year’s Day in the United States as watching football games on television—especially the Rose Bowl game in Pasadena, California; the Cotton Bowl in Dallas, Texas; the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans, Louisiana; and the Orange Bowl in Miami, Florida. In many homes, having friends over to watch football has replaced the more social visits paid on this day in past centuries.

Although gift-giving at New Year’s is rare in the United States, it remains popular in France, Italy, and some other European countries.

The custom of making more secular New Year’s resolutions came into vogue at the turn of the twentieth century. People started promising to be more moderate in their eating and drinking habits and to patch up their quarrels with friends, family, and business associates. But it was always understood that most of these vows would not be kept—at least not for long—since humans were backsliders by nature. The New Year’s resolutions that are so widely encouraged and talked about today are a secularized version of the vows that more religiousindividuals once made in their never-ending journey toward spiritual perfection. Although often made with the best of intentions, such pledges are rarely carried out and must be renewed on an annual basis.