My favorite New Year's celebration:
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Mayan's (Score:1)
I didn't think there would be anymore.
Whatever day it is (Score:5, Funny)
When I remember to write "2013" on my checks. Of course I don't write many checks any more, so it could be a long time after Jan 1.
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When I remember to write "2013" on my checks. Of course I don't write many checks any more, so it could be a long time after Jan 1.
Back before online bill pay, I used to remember the new year right away. But, oddly, along about March or April I'd relapse for some reason and start writing the previous year again. The only thing I can figure is that was when I stopped having to explicitly think about the year anymore.
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@93 - making the assumption you are in the U.S. - it's probably because you were dealing with the previous year's taxes (federal, state, local) which shifted the mindset from "it's the new year" to "previous year".
Other options (Score:4, Informative)
Well, New Year on the Julian calendar would probably be in the "Some other variety" category.
Another possibility would be the perihelion of the Earth [wikipedia.org] which is on 2 January in 2013 but was on 5 January in 2012. There are lots of possibilities in the period just before and shortly after the December solstice, depending on your ethnic/religious preferences, such as Beaivi [wikipedia.org], Brumalia [wikipedia.org], Sol Invictus [wikipedia.org], Malkh [wikipedia.org], Dongzhi [wikipedia.org], Saturnalia [wikipedia.org], Pancha Ganapati [wikipedia.org], Yule [wikipedia.org], Soyal [wikipedia.org], Twelfth night [wikipedia.org], Yalda [wikipedia.org], Ziemassvetki [wikipedia.org], and so forth.
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Favorite =/= Celebrated in my case. (Score:5, Insightful)
I celebrate the Gregorian first, but I enjoy the Chinese New Year celebrations more and try to drop by the local Chinatown for the dragons.
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What city? I lived for a year on the edge of Philadelphia's Chinatown, and one of the best things that happened that year is when I (without thinking anything about it) had lunch a restaurant there on Chinese New Year. Everything seemed normal enough -- maybe slightly more crowded than usual -- until a dragon and tens of thousands of firecrackers appeared ;) A mood-boosting spectacle.
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I've changed cities 3 times in the same number of years, but London was my favorite so far.
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And not money? [grin]
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Chinatown is so 19th Century. If you want real Chinese New Year celebrations, move to an area that has enough Chinese people to take over whole cities [wikipedia.org] instead of being ghettoized into a Chinatown. Having a serious range of authentic Chinese regional restaurants is a major bonus, too.
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Personally, I love the Thai New Year (in April).
You gotta love a New Year Celebration that involves an entire country in a Water Fight for a week. Everyone is fair game. I once saw a police sergeant on a motocycle, covered from head-to-toe in white powder and drenched in water. His service revolver and radio were encased in zip-lock plastic bags. As he rode past, everyone was throwing water at him.
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Winter solstice (Score:5, Insightful)
The winter solstice (December 21/22) makes the most sense to me. It's only dependent on the Earth's position on its orbit and its tilt, so it should be very predictable and stable, and is easily observable from having the shortest day of the year on that day. (Of course, in the southern hemisphere they get the longest day of the year.)
Off the poll options, the southward equinox comes closest, being a quarter of an orbit off.
Re:Winter solstice (Score:5, Interesting)
For me, new years eve comes halfway through the Yule celebrations, which start at Winter solstice and lasts for 20 days. It's a good time for a another party within the bigger party.
That New Yerars Eve falls within the winter holiday celebrations is normal even in mainstream - in Sweden, for example, Jul starts at December 24th and ends on January 6th.
It's pretty much only the US and followers who ends their Christmas and toss the tree out at boxing day. But to compensate, they have stretched a non-celebrating version of the holidays in the other direction, and where a traditionalist European wouldn't light the tree until Christmas eve, an American might have had it lit since late November. But 13 or 20 days of festivities with special food, relatives and singing carols, no, they miss out on that. I don't think there's any American holday that lasts for more than one day, or four if counting three days off next to it.
Another missing option is Samhain. Many neo-pagans, and particularly Wiccans reckon that the new year starts when the god dies and is reborn at (hardcore) the second moon holiday (esbat) after fall equinox or (mainstream) at Hallowe'en.
If I were to choose when new years should start, I would shift the calendar a couple of days to coincide with perihelion. And rename the months so that sept- oct- nov- and dec- would fall on the 7th, 8th, 9th and 10th months instead of the mess we have now.
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...start at Winter solstice and lasts for 20 days.
Ignignokt: Here on the moon our new years are so advanced, they last all year long.
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Ignignokt: Here on the moon our new years are so advanced, they last all year long.
You answered facetious because you thought celebrating Yule for 20 days [wikipedia.org] was a fabrication to be dismissed by another fabrication?
Have a continued happy yule, merry christmas or other holiday greeting of choice. I'm off to have a few glasses of holiday cheer, and put some more decorations on the tree!
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I never understood why the calendar did not start on the solstice. A lunar calendar may not be interested in the solstices and equinoxes, but a solar calendar, based on the sun, should be very much in line with the most significant solar events. Just as lunar calendars are lined up with the phases of the moon, the first of every January, April, July, and October would be lined up with the solstices and equinoxes.
The move from Julian to Gregorian happened before, I don't see why it couldn't happen again. It
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This year I half joked with friends that I was celebrating the New Year at the Winter Solstice for to me, getting back light means a lot more then some arbitrary Gregorian Calendar date based on some religious act. Calendars come and Calendars go, but the Sun is basically eternal. A New Year makes sense when the Earth passes the point in orbit where the days become longer (at one end) and shorter at the other. With the Winter Solstice being the beginning I'd revamp the calendar around the four primary So
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Last time I checked, Scotland was still part of the UK. We practically invented New Year.
Well, Hogmanay at least :)
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Last time I checked, Scotland was still part of the UK.
We're leaving it (hopefully) as fast as we can..
We practically invented New Year.
Indeed, Hogmanay was always more 'celebrated' than Christmas in our house, well, mostly my Grandmother's house as that's where we all ended up.
Ach, good times, sadly long gone..
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As an American, I am always in favor of people wanting to break free from England.
But seriously, they make Scotch there, right? They'll be just fine as long as they can keep exporting the stuff.
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The real stuff that makes the money is the oil. That said, it was discovered recently that the Scotch industry makes more money per employee than any bank in the square mile has ever done.
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Oh well, New Year in UK is practically not celebrated
Uhhh, maybe in England, but in Scotland, new years is a bigger celebration than christmas is.
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If you feel bad for the Pagans, then how do you think Cretans and Lesbians feel?
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Off the poll options, the southward equinox comes closest, being a quarter of an orbit off.
The joke choice is supposed to be last. Trust the polls to get that right!
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I would think that the equinox would be a better baseline for the year, if the ease of determining which day is the 1st is the key metric. You can determine whether today is an equinox based on the place the sun rises, rather than having to wait until sunset the following day to determine that a solstice was the longest/shortest day.
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>and is easily observable from having the shortest day of the year on that day
Sure but how do you observe it in advance? I mean, we have to plan this party, you can't just show up a month later and say "yeah it's looking like dec 21 was the shortest day, but lets measure some more to be extra careful"
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Of course people closer to the equator I suspect don't find it as notable.
Unconcerned (Score:3, Funny)
Back in 1999 i found the new-years so boring that i went to sleep. Woke up in another millennium .
Re:Unconcerned (Score:5, Funny)
So you slept for over a year? Did it leave any brain dama... oh, the question answered itself.
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Sticking to the standard [wikipedia.org] is braindamaged now? I hope you don't develop any software that needs to implement any form of exchange data format.
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here we go again...
well, kinda... if you agree with what you say, because and ISO is not static and is changeable.
can you ask yourself, if you are x years old - in which year of life are you living?
People are mixing 2 different conceptions - number of current year and counting system of years:
1. Before your birthday of 1st year, you were 0 years *old*.
2. Before your birthday of 1st year, you were enjoying your 1st *year* - not 0 year.
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You don't tell me anything new. Birthday number x marks the end of year number x of your life. The same applies to years: new year 2000 marks the end of year 2000. If you begin counting at zero (like with birthdays), of course, as the ISO standard does. If you prefer the gregorian calender, then new year 2000 is actually the beginning of year number 2000. Because there's no year zero in this calendar.
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There was no year zero. The VERY FIRST DAY is year one.
With a birth, year one is 365 days+- later.
If you can't understand that, then you should not be doing anything technical with dates.
IT's a product of a retroactive dating system. You don't think people ACTUALLY lived dear a year called year zero, do you?
they year 2000 was the last full year of a millennium.
This was well covered and explained 14 year ago.
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Nice Portal reference. Not sure what these other guys are on about. ;-)
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I had a fun Pedants’ Millennium myself, organizing a pub crawl that was so successful that only my friend and me made it to
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There is the correct one, and the incorrect one. This allowing inaccuracies to be around becasue the 'common person' think it's correct just feeds into the the balance fallacy. The belief that all opinions carry the same weight.
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Ironically at the time, most geeks were better sheltered than todays preppers.
Could have easily lasted months from the bounty of the vending machines alone.
And hordes of looters are just more clothing for you to choose from after a few minutes in the pure halon atmosphere we could provide on demand.
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Mayday! Mayday! (Score:4, Interesting)
Why, that's the Russian New Year! We'll have a big parade, and serve hot hors d'oeuvres...
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No, the white zone is for loading of passengers and there is no stopping in a RED zone.
Admit it. You just want me to get an abortion.
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Listen Betty, don't start up with your white zone shit again.
Missing Option (Score:2)
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By those standards, why pick just one? Let's celebrate 'em all until we get vashnigyered!
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Hindu New year (Score:3)
Yes. It is celebrated by one sixth population of the world . It is based on Hindu calender. Look it up at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu_Calender [wikipedia.org]. Very interesting way of tracking time.
Although the celebration is not very pronounced as the 1st January.
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I don't like a new year that has more rules then a leap year.
'Noo Year'? Whit ye chunterin' aboot ya numptie?! (Score:2)
I think you mean Hogmanay [wikipedia.org]. Much more important than that other holiday, what's it called... Christmas:
Christmas in Scotland was traditionally observed very quietly, because the Church of Scotland – a Presbyterian church – for various reasons never placed much emphasis on the Christmas festival.
Christmas Day only became a public holiday in 1958, and Boxing Day in 1974.
(ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_in_Scotland [wikipedia.org])
Aye, you're damn right we've got our priorities straight: boozing > presents, every damn time. Now, why do I have this pain in my liver..?
Obligatory (Score:1)
Winter's coming!
party (Score:1)
Catholic Advent (Score:1)
Nowruz (Score:2)
Lunar!!1! (Score:2)
Lunar New Year, you insensitive clod! It's celebrated by more cultures than the Chinese, after all.
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Lunar New Year, you insensitive clod! It's celebrated by more cultures than the Chinese, after all.
Chinese New Year is very distinct: there's a week of nonstop fireworks. And yes, I do mean nonstop. People shoot off rockets 24/7 for a week. The smoke from the metals that make the colors is so thick you'd think you were in a London fog. It's the worst possible New Year celebration for anyone even vaguely concerned with health.
Most obvious missing option (Score:3)
Good-old Gregorian January 1st - in Sydney (Score:2)
Good-old Gregorian January 1st
Especially when celebrated in Luna Park under the Sydney Harbor Bridge.
It doesn't get any better than that -- and it's warm there too on Jan 1.
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Luna Park? But that's in Seattle...or at least it was...100 years ago. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luna_Park,_Seattle [wikipedia.org]
Southern hemisphere new year (Score:2)
The winter solstice on the 21st June (approximately).
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Martian New Year (Score:2)
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gonna be awhile before that's possible. perhaps you might get lucky with a celebration on mons pubis before then.
cowboy neal! (Score:2)
Don't forget about Halloween!!! (Score:1)
Rosh Hashana (Score:1)
We have apple in honey, pomegranate, fish and many other fun things to eat.
New Year, 3 hours early (Score:2)
Up here in the arse end of Finland, they're having a fireworks display - at 9pm, ostensibly so the kids can see it without having to stay up too late. (Actually so the adults can get them tucked away and get well and truly plastered before midnight.)
To be honest, I don't know why they don't make it even earlier. It'll be dark by 3 anyway...
2038 Jan 19 (Score:2)
I, for one, am looking forward to the 64-bit epoch. Grab some popcorn while the world explodes....
Bah (Score:2)
What, the earth has gone around the sun ONE MORE TIME? Tell me what's new!
Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God (Score:3)
I celebrate the new year by attending Mass for the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God.
This isn't really "Good-old Gregorian January 1st". When Gregory XIII introduced the new calendar in the 16th century, new year's day was the Feast of the Circumcision of Christ, and that's the way the calendar was until the liturgical reforms of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council restored the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God to the 1st, which is when it had been celebrated in ancient times since the early councils established the dogma of Theotokos.
So, I think I'd rather say I celebrate the New-Fangled Gregorian January 1st.
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celebrated in ancient times since the early councils established the dogma of Theotokos.
Well don't blame me, I voted for Kodos.
What is this new year of which you speak (Score:2)
The world ended earlier this month. Have you fotgotten allready?
old? (Score:2)
Why "Good-old Gregorian" when it's actually the newest of the specific options?
Days off (Score:2)
April 1st (Score:2)
1 Vendémiaire (Score:1)
Which is also the day of the southward equinox.
( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Republican_Calendar [wikipedia.org] for those of you who didn't take a course in French History ^^ )
March 1st (Score:2)
Obviously the right New Year in the 1st of March. It makes September the seventh month, October the eights, November the ninth which makes much more sense, since they are named after these numbers. It as some crazy honk who changed New Year to January.
Analemma (Score:2)
The Romans celebrated Natalis Solis Invicti at the time of the solstice, shortest day of the year. I skip the morning half and focus solely on the evening part.
There is a day that marks my personal start of the yearly cycle, and it has everything to do with the earliest sunset of the year [wikipedia.org], around December 5 or 6.
By the time December 31 comes around, sunsets are already 10 minutes later than three weeks before. The later the sunset, the better.
During November, I remind myself that "Analemma" is just around
Gaelic Calendar - Oiche Samhna (Halloween) (Score:3)
October 1, 1993 (Score:1)
The day after the last day of Eternal September [wikipedia.org].
With USENET dying a slow death, this day may be within sight at last.
Happy new year 2013 (Score:1)
Spring cross-quarter day (Score:2)
April Fools Day (Score:2)
I think the start of spring makes a good New Years, so call me an April Fool...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_Fools'_Day [wikipedia.org]
there's no new years... (Score:2)
It's just a made up thing that we use to mark time.
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Oh, hell yeah. I celebrated New Year 3 times last year: Western, Vietnamese, and Thai. Songkran was the best. Soaked head to toe, pool dance party until 3am. Buy your super-soaker early. Stores sell out.
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But national laws (Europe calling) only allow me to use fireworks on 31 December (and 1 January). So I have to "celebrate" then.
What? No fireworks on the 4th of July? How unpatriotic... Oh wait.
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Congratulations! You just earned a WHOOSH... (BOOM!)
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Linked to that, my preference is to celebrate Tax Freedom Day
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_Freedom_Day [wikipedia.org]
29 May 2012 in the UK, not sure when it will be in 2013