HAPPY NEW YEAR
NEW YEAR'S DAY is Tuesday, January 1, 2013
About New Year's Day
January 1 marks the beginning of the new year in the Gregorian Calendar. This day is traditionally a religious feast. Since the early 1900s, the night preceding New Year’s Day, New Year’s Eve, has become an occasion for celebration. There are often fireworks at midnight.
New Year’s is an occasion to make New Year resolutions, things people dedicate themselves to in the coming Year.
In all countries that use the Gregorian Calendar, with the exception of Israel, New Year's Day is a public holiday. For many of those countries, if January 1 falls on a Saturday or Sunday, then the Friday before or the Monday after will be a public holiday.
New Year History
Originally observed on March 1, in the Roman Calendar, New Year's Day was first set as being January 1 in 153 BC, when the two Roman consuls began to be chosen on that date. However in AD 525, Dionysius Exiguus declared the start of the Julian calendar at March 25 to commemorate the Annunciation of Jesus; a variety of Christian feast dates were used throughout the Middle Ages to mark the New Year, while calendars often continued to display the months in columns running from January to December in the Roman fashion.
Most countries in Western Europe officially adopted January 1 as New Year's Day somewhat before they adopted the Gregorian calendar. This is sometimes called Circumcision Style because this was the date of the Feast of the Circumcision, being the eighth day counting from December 25.
