The Shadow
COVINGTON, Va. (VR) – New Year’s Day, observed on Jan. 1 across much of the world, traces its roots to ancient Rome, yet its traditions weave through Babylonian fields, European churches, and modern American city streets. Today’s celebrations, from quiet resolutions to roaring countdowns, mirror a history of calendars, faith, and culture that converged on the first day of January only after centuries of change.
January takes its name from Janus, the Roman god of beginnings, endings, doorways, and time, often depicted with two faces: one looking back, the other forward, a fitting symbol for a moment that invites reflection and resolve. Roman leaders ultimately fixed New Year’s Day on Jan. 1 as part of reforms meant to standardize civic life across a sprawling empire. Julius Caesar’s Julian calendar reform in 46 B.C. aligned the year to solar time and elevated January’s role, embedding Janus at the threshold of each year.
Yet Jan. 1 was not always the global standard. In antiquity, the Babylonians welcomed the new year during the spring planting season, around March, amid the Akitu festival.
There, people pledged to their gods, promised better conduct, and, in a barter economy, even returned borrowed tools, an early template for personal vows that echoes in modern resolutions.
As Roman influence spread, January’s symbolism deepened. Romans honored Janus with offerings and promises of good behavior; courts closed for part of the day, and citizens exchanged gifts of fruit and honey. Over time, Christianity layered new meanings atop older customs. In parts of medieval Europe, the new year shifted away from January; some regions marked it at Christmas, and others, such as those using the Annunciation dating, centered New Year’s Day on March 25. The effect was a patchwork of calendars and start dates across the whole of Christianity for centuries.
The modern consolidation came with the Gregorian calendar. Introduced by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582 to correct the Julian calendar’s drift, the reform standardized Jan. 1 as New Year’s Day across Catholic Europe. Britain and its colonies joined later, in 1752, when Parliament adopted the Gregorian system — a change that, through imperial reach, carried the Jan. 1 new year to much of the world over the next two centuries.
Still, not all cultures turned the page in January. The Jewish and Islamic calendars continue to mark their new years in the fall. The Lunar New Year. observed in China and across East and Southeast Asia, arrives between late January and mid-February, guided by the moon’s cycles. Worldwide, the concept of starting anew remains universal even when the dates differ.
In the United States, New Year’s Eve became a nighttime spectacle in the 20th century, amplified by electricity, mass media, and the growth of urban celebrations. Times Square’s iconic ball drop began in 1907 as a publicity move by The New York Times, which had relocated to a new headquarters. The ball itself drew on the “time ball,” a maritime signaling device once used to help ships set their clocks. Times Square has seen seven iterations of the ball, and in more than a century it failed to drop only twice — during voluntary wartime “dim-outs” in 1942 and 1943 amid fears of German submarines in the Atlantic.
The era of radio helped popularize another tradition: the singing of “Auld Lang Syne.”
Though its lyrics were collected and refined from Scottish folk tradition by Robert Burns in the late 18th century, the song became a New Year’s staple in the U.S. after bandleader Guy Lombardo performed it at a 1929 celebration at New York’s Roosevelt Hotel, a broadcast that linked nostalgia to the new beginning for generations of listeners.
Food, too, carries centuries-old meanings into the American new year. During the colonial period, German, Swiss, and Dutch communities ate pork and sauerkraut for luck. In the South, Hoppin’ John rice, black-eyed peas, pork, and greens symbolized prosperity.
Some English traditions featured opening the house’s front door at midnight to let the old year out and the new year in, a small ritual that makes a household doorway into a Janus-like passage.
Resolutions remain the most personal carryover from ancient vows. Historians point to Babylonian and Roman promises to gods as predecessors of today’s secular goals, from health to finances. Modern research has found Americans return to resolutions annually by the tens of millions. Studies cited in recent discussions suggest that people who make resolutions are far more likely to achieve their aims than those who set similar goals without the New Year’s framing; success, the research suggests, often includes setbacks along the way, with respondents reporting multiple slip-ups before
achieving durable change, an insight that reframes failure as part of the process.
Beyond Times Square, the U.S. has layered new customs onto older frameworks. Confetti “wishes,” written by visitors and later included in the ton of paper that flutters over the square at midnight, turn private hopes into a collective ritual. Nationwide countdowns, champagne toasts, and midnight kisses have become common. While many communities and faiths mark the day with quieter reflection, a nod to Janus that needs no statue, only a glance back and a step forward.
Across continents and calendars, the New Year endures because it ties human time to meaning. Whether marked by a spring planting festival, an autumn holy day, or a winter clock striking midnight, the act of beginning again binds past to future. In the two-faced gaze of Janus, the world finds both memory and promise, and, for one day each year, a door that swings open to hope.
