Secondary: Current Assemblies

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

By Helen Bryant

Suitable for Whole School


Aim

To look at the history of new year celebrations.

Preparation and materials

• Optional: You might like some party poppers and balloons to create the right mood.

Assembly

1. Happy New Year! Yes, it’s that time again when we look ahead to what the new year will bring us. I have no doubt that some of you went to parties; you hung on until the countdown to midnight and then you wished everyone ‘Happy New Year!’ Maybe you were kissed and hugged by people you knew well and maybe by some that you didn’t. New year engenders an idea of hope, promise and excitement for the coming year and all that it will bring to us.
   
2. Have you ever stopped to wonder why we celebrate new year in this way? And why does our new year begin on 1 January?
   
   Other cultures celebrate new year at different times in the year. Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah, is celebrated in September. Chinese New Year falls in January–February and the date depends on the cycle of the moon. So why do the majority of western countries take 1 January as New Year’s Day?
   
3. Let me tell you a little about the history of the celebration of new year. This celebration is the oldest of all holidays. It was first observed in ancient Babylon about 4,000 years ago. In the years around 2,000 bc, the Babylonian new year was usually in March, and began with the first new moon, the first visible crescent, after the vernal equinox, which in the northern hemisphere is the first day of spring.
   
   The beginning of spring is a logical time to start a new year, as everything is just starting to grow again, or is coming out of hibernation, after the winter. Spring is the season of rebirth, when new crops are planted and plants begin to blossom. It would seem that 1 January, on the other hand, has no astronomical or agricultural significance and was chosen for no particular symbolic reason.
   
   The Babylonian new year celebration lasted for eleven days, rather than our traditional evening and day. Each day had its own special and particular mode of celebration, and it is safe to say that modern new year festivities pale in comparison. It would be good to be able to tack some extra days onto the Christmas holidays, though, wouldn’t it?
   
4. In Roman times the new year continued to be observed in late March, although as time went on various emperors tampered with their calendar so that the calendar came to be out of synchronization with the sun and the seasons.
   
   In 153 bc, in order to set the calendar right, the Roman senate declared that 1 January would be the beginning of the new year, and this is where we get our new year date from. However, tampering with the calendar by the Roman emperors continued, but eventually, in 46 bc, Julius Caesar established what has come to be known as the Julian calendar.
   
   Not only is Julius Caesar remembered for making the Roman empire one of the largest empires in our known history, he is famous for introducing the familiar 12-month calendar. Under this calendar 1 January was still the date of the new year. But in order to synchronize the new calendar with the sun, Caesar had to let the previous year drag on for 445 days! That must have been a very long wait for the new year and all the excitement that it brings.
   
5. And so, since the time of Julius Caesar we have celebrated the coming of the new year on 1 January. People have sung, celebrated and looked forward on 1 January for over 2,050 years. Imagine how many wishes of a good year that has been? Amazing to think that our wishes may not have been all that different from theirs. How many of them, do you think, kept their new year resolutions?

Time for reflection

A new start, O Lord,

My initiative or yours?

Journey with us, Lord, through this coming year.

Help us to follow our dreams,

to live our joys and our sorrows

and to grasp the year as people have done for thousands of years before us.

Amen.

Song

‘Morning has broken’ (Come and Praise, 1)