The Holiday Season: Today

Today many of us yearn to make the holiday season
more meaningful, more loving, perhaps more spiritual.

Candlegrove traces the winter holiday season daily from Thanksgiving through Epiphany.

`January 1, 2008`

The world's most widely celebrated holiday, New Year's Day has been called "Everyman's Birthday." In some countries, a year is added to everyone's age on January 1, rather than on each person's birthday.

January 1 has been observed as the first day of the year in English-speaking countries only since 1751. Before that, the New Year began on March 25 (at about the spring equinox).

In Victorian times, it was a day for gentleman to make brief social calls on ladies of their acquaintance.

Parades take place in many cities, including London, Paris, Pasadena, and Philadelphia, where the Mummer's Parade takes up a tradition that stretches all the way back to Saturnalia.

In Russia, New Year's Day is celebrated by setting up New Year's trees, holding parties for children with Granddad Frost and his granddaughter Snow Girl, exchanging gifts, games and songs.

Japanese New Year celebrations, shogatsu, or oshogatsu, involve a range of family customs, special foods, and decorations. Temple bells are sounded 108 times, symbolically driving out the 108 sins in the Buddhist catalog.

Then of course, we have the various Polar Bear and Penguin Plunges...

It's the final day of Kwanzaa. Today's principle is IMANI — faith.

`Tips for the day`

According to German folklore, New Year's Day should be lived as one would like to live the whole year through. It was considered good luck to wear one new garment and have money in the pockets for good fortune. More about the folklore surrounding New Year's Day, from Waverly Fitzgerald's School of the Seasons.

Probably not for those who indulged too much last night, but it was traditional to serve wassail on New Year's Day to insure good health. Literally translated, the name means "Be well!" To fully carry out the tradition, you can take a little wassail outside and spill it a little at a time, around your house (clockwise is best). This blesses the land and brings happiness to the home. Fruit-bearing trees should also be so blessed.

For those who had too much of a good thing on New Year's Eve, how about some hangover remedies?

If your holiday celebration depends on knowing sunrise and/or sunset times for winter solstice or any other day in your location, find it online at the U.S. Naval Observatory. The database covers 22,000 US locations. For world locations, you'll need your latitude and longitude.

This site also lists solstices and equinoxes through 2020. You'll need to convert to your time zone from Universal Time.

Wassail

Everything you could possibly want to know about one ancient holiday tradition, gathered together in one jolly Web site The Web's Wassail Epicenter!

New Year's Resolutions

Good tips on how to keep your New Year's Resolutions
Cute! Random New Year's Resolution Generator

New Year's Foods

In Italy, lentils are served at New Year's, because their abundant tiny shapes symbolize wealth. In the American South, the tradition is black-eyed peas. In Scotland, there's a whole menu for celebrating Hogmanay. In Japan, eating toshi-koshi soba noodles for longevity is the New Year's Eve tradition, while a whole range of foods, osechi-ryori, are eaten throughout the New Year celebration.