Happy New Year!
By BILL DUNCAN
The View From Here
The calendar has just a few days left for 2006. On Monday, we will be celebrating the New Year, 2007. You can bet from my Scottish heritage I will be singing "Auld Lang Syne," at the stroke of midnight.
Written by Robert Burns in 1741, the plaintive song was first published in 1796 after Burns’ death. "Auld Lang Syne" literally means "old long ago," or simply, "the good old days."
In spite of the popularity of "Auld Lang Syne," those Scottish words will probably be mispronounced, even in Scotland.
Of course with the New Year come all those resolutions we probably won’t keep more than a few days into the new year.
The tradition of the New Year’s Resolutions, according to Gary Ryan Blair, the inspiration behind the 10MillionResolutions.com web site, goes all the way back to 153 B.C. Janus, a mythical king of early Rome with two faces allowing him to look back on past events and forward to the future. Janus became the ancient symbol for resolutions for Romans hoping for a better year at the beginning of each year.
The Romans even named the first month of the year after Janus, which now translates to January. However, before you get wrapped up in asking Janus for good things in 2007, you should understand that the New Year has not always begun on January 1. And to make matters worst, it doesn’t begin on that date everywhere in the world today.
It begins on that date only for cultures who use a 365-day solar calendar. January 1 became the beginning of the New Year in 46 B.C., when Julius Caesar developed a calendar that would more accurately reflect the seasons than previous calendars.
The celebration of the New Year is the oldest of all holidays. It was first observed in ancient Babylon about 4000 years ago. In the years around 2000 BC, Babylonians celebrated the beginning of a new year on what is now March 23 the time of year that spring begins and new crops are planted.
The Babylonian New Year celebration lasted for eleven days. Each day had its own particular celebration. The Romans continued to observe the New Year on March 25, but their calendar was continually tampered with by various emperors. In order to set the calendar right, the Roman senate, in 153 BC, declared January 1 to be the beginning of the New Year.
But the tampering continued until Julius Caesar, in 46 BC, established what has come to be known as the Julian Calendar. It established January 1 as the New Year.
Pope Gregory XIII revised the Julian calendar, and the Julian and Gregorian calendars are solar calendars, celebrating New Year’s Day on January 1. Some cultures such as the Chinese have lunar calendars, however. A year in a lunar calendar is less than 365 days because the months are based on the phases of the moon.
The Chinese new year begins at the time of the first full moon (over the Far East) after the sun enters Aquarius- — sometime between January 19 and February 21.
Although the date for New Year’s Day is not the same in every culture, most cultures do make resolutions.
My resolution this year is not to make any resolutions, then I don’t have to break them. On the other hand, maybe I will just make one, the practice my Scottish brogue to correctly sing the words of "Auld Lang Syne," particularly this verse:
"We twa hae run aboot the braes
And pou’d the gowans fine;
we’ve wander’d mony a weary foot
Sin’ auld lang syne"
(Bill Duncan wishes everyone Happy and Peaceful New Year!)