New Year's Eve

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New Year's Eve
Also called	Hogmanay (Scotland), Silvester (Germany, Israel, Hungary, Poland)
Observed by	People around the world
Type	International
Significance	The final day of the Gregorian year
Date	December 31, climaxing at midnight
Celebrations	Reflections, Late-Night Partying, Fireworks
Related to	New Year's Day and Christmas Day

New Year's Eve is 31 December, the final day of the Gregorian year, and the day before New Year's Day.

New Year's Eve is a separate observance from the observance of New Year's Day. In 21st-century Western practice, New Year's Eve is celebrated with parties and social gatherings spanning the transition of the year at midnight.

Many cultures use fireworks and other forms of noise making in part of the celebration. Some of the cities most well-known for their celebrations include Sydney, Melbourne, Tokyo, London, Edinburgh, Istanbul, Berlin, Paris, Athens, Los Angeles, New Orleans, Manila, Madrid, New York City, Las Vegas, Taipei, Hong Kong, Seoul, Chicago, San Rafael, Toronto, Rio de Janeiro, Valparaiso, Niagara Falls, Ontario and Montreal.

New Year's Eve is a public non-working holiday in the following countries, among others: Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Greece, the Philippines, and Venezuela.

Each major city around Australia holds New Year’s Eve celebrations, usually accompanied by a fireworks display amongst other events. Perth's fireworks are let off from barges along the Swan River, whilst 50,000 people annually gather at sites around the Brisbane River in the city to watch a fireworks display while events are held in the city and at Southbank. The two largest New Year's Eve celebrations in Australia are held in its two largest cities, Melbourne and Sydney. Over 1 million people gather around Sydney Harbour every year for the celebrations. See Sydney New Year's Eve, New Years Eve Australia or NewYearsParty

New Year's Eve (Véspera de Ano Novo) is one of the most exuberant holidays in Brazil. In most Brazilian cities, even those of medium size, there is a major display of fireworks after midnight, and special musical shows. The most famous celebration is at the Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro. The city of São Paulo also has a famous worldwide event: the Saint Silvester Marathon (Corrida de São Silvestre), which traverses streets between Paulista Avenue and the downtown area. It is contested by athletes of many countries, including such Olympic stars as the Kenyan runner Paul Tergat, who won it five times.

In Canada, families usually gather and celebrate New Year's Eve together. Often, several families will come together and celebrate in a large party. Parties usually involve fireworks and light shows. Many Canadians see New Year's Eve (and Christmas) as a time of family reunion and have a great feast. They will usually spend a great deal of time eating at home (in French, this feast is called Réveillon). However, traditions vary from region to region. For instance, in Ottawa, celebrants often head to the Byward Market or the annual New Year's Eve In Ottawa party at the Crowne Plaza. In Quebec, le Jour du Nouvel An is celebrated with the family and friends, and the exchange of gifts is common. In rural and remote areas, people often take their snowmobiles to high hills, set up the barbecues, and roast steaks or hotdogs. In some areas, such as in rural Quebec, people ice fish and drink with their friends until the early hours of January 1st. Many cities and towns also have fireworks to celebrate the New Year.

The Danes usually celebrate New Year's Eve, or nytårsaften in Danish, with their families or, more commonly nowadays, with their close friends, with fireworks and champagne. The evening meal on New Years Eve is often more exclusive, and often consists of three courses; traditional deserts include Marzipan ring cake (Danish: kransekage, lit.: ring cake). Danes often watch the Queen's New Years Speech on television. The climax is when the clock on the Copenhagen City Hall reaches twelve, and the thousands of gathered people at the city square cheer and set off their fireworks. As in Germany the national television station DR1 broadcasts Dinner for One (in Danish: 90 års fødselsdagen (lit.: The 90^th birthday)).

Ecuador celebrates a unique tradition on the last day of the year. Elaborate effigies, called Años Viejos(Old Years) are created to represent people and events from the past year. Often these include political characters or leaders that the creator of the effigy may have disagreed with. The dummies are made of straw, newspaper, and old clothes, with paper mache masks. Often they are also stuffed with fire crackers. At midnight the effigies are lit on fire to symbolize burning away of the past year and welcoming of the new year. The origin of the tradition is unknown, but is similar to that of the British Guy Fawkes Night. It is possible the tradition began after a yellow fever epidemic left many dead. The corpses were then disposed of by burning.

Another well known tradition is the “Widow” which is usually a man dressed up as a woman who has to make people laugh by crying a lot. Then the public or people around will give this “widow” some sort of charity for her assumedly mentally insane husband.

Other rituals are performed for the health, wealth, prosperity and protection of each member. These rituals are the following: Twelve grapes: Each person eats twelve grapes before midnight, making a wish with each grape.

Yellow panties: One of the most popular traditions, yellow panties are said to attract positive energies for the New Year.

Suitcase: Walking around the block with the suitcase will bring the person the journey of their dreams.

The French call New Year's Eve la Saint-Sylvestre. It is usually celebrated with a feast called le Réveillon de la Saint-Sylvestre. This feast customarily includes special dishes like foie gras and drinks like champagne. The celebration can be a simple, intimate dinner with friends and family or a much fancier ball (une soirée dansante).

On le Jour de l'An (New Year's Day), friends and family exchange New Year's resolutions and sometimes gifts.

The holiday period ends on January 6 for the Epiphany. On this day, they traditionally enjoy a type of cake that varies depending on where you are in France.

The Germans call the New Year's Eve Silvester. Since 1972, each New Year's Eve, German television has broadcast a short video, Dinner for One in English. A punch line from the comedy sketch, "same procedure as every year", has become a catch phrase in Germany.^[1] Moreover in Berlin, the largest New Year's Eve celebration in all of Europe, is celebrated by more than 1,000,000 people attending the festivities each year. A huge firework is started at the Brandenburg Gate.

New Year's Eve fireworks in India

Most celebrations take place in the larger cities of India like Bangalore, Delhi, Chennai, Hyderabad and Mumbai. Events such as, live concerts and dances by bollywood stars, fireworks and parties take place. Families often get together to celebrate the New Year.

The Red and White Year-end Song Festival is a 50-year-old tradition in which "25 men and 25 women are split into two teams for a seemingly endless warble." The Buddhist temple bells are rung 108 times.^[1]

Mexicans down a grape with each of the twelve chime of the bell during the New Year countdown, while making a wish with each one. On New Year's Eve, those who want to find love in the new year wear red underwear and yellow if they want money.^[1] Other traditions include, sweeping the dirt out, taking luggage outside as a symbol of future trips, hanging sheep dolls (mainly made out of wool) in the doorknob for prosperity, among others. The celebrations are very similar to those of Spain (see below).

Auckland is 496.3 kilometres west of the International Date Line and thus is the first major city to see the beginning of the new year. In common with many other places it celebrates this with large street parties and fireworks displays. Elsewhere in New Zealand, local councils usually organise parties and street carnivals and fireworks displays. In recent years however, liquor bans have been imposed on many of the more popular areas due to disorder, vandalism and other anti-social behaviours.

Filipinos usually celebrate New Year's Eve with the company of family and close friends. Traditionally, most households stage a dinner party named Media Noche in their homes. Typical dishes include pancit, Jamon and if the family could afford it, Lechon, which is usually considered as the centerpiece of the dinner table. Barbecued food is also an integral part of the menu.

Most Filipinos follow a set of traditions that are typically observed during New Year's Eve. Included among these traditions is the customary habit of wearing clothes with circular patterns like polka dots, this signifies the belief that circles attract money and fortune. Traditions also include the serving of circularly-shaped fruits, shaking of coins inside a metal casserole while walking around the house, jumping high which is believed to cause an increase in physical height and making loud noises to drive away "evil" spirits among others. Households also spend money to buy firecrackers and pyrotechnics that would be ignited at the strike of midnight.

Cities in urban areas are usually host to many New Year's Eve parties and countdown celebrations which are usually hosted by the private sector with the help of the local government. Notable parties include GMA Network's party at the Plaza Sulayman of Baywalk in Manila. These parties usually display their own fireworks spectacle.

The Puerta Del Sol in 2005 New Year's Eve

Spanish New Year's Eve (Nochevieja, or Fin de Año) celebrations usually begin with a family dinner, traditionally including shrimp and lamb or turkey. Spanish people believe that wearing red underwear on New Year's Eve brings good luck. The actual countdown is primarily followed from the clock on top of the Casa de Correos building in Puerta del Sol square in Madrid. It is traditional to eat twelve grapes, one on each chime of the clock. This tradition has its origins in 1909, when grape growers in Alicante thought of it as a way to cut down on the large production surplus they had had that year. Nowadays, the tradition is followed by almost every Spaniard, and the twelve grapes have become synonymous with the New Year. After the clock has finished striking twelve, people greet each other and toast with sparkling wine such as cava or champagne, or alternatively with cider.

After the family dinner and the grapes, many young people attend New Year parties at pubs, discotheques and similar places (these parties are called cotillones de nochevieja, after the Spanish word cotillón, which refers to party supplies like confetti, party blowers, party hats, etc.). Parties usually last until the next morning and range from small, personal celebrations at local bars to huge parties with guests numbering the thousands at hotel convention rooms. Early next morning, party attendees usually gather to have the traditional winter breakfast of ‘’chocolate con churros’’ (hot chocolate and fried pastry).

New Year's Eve celebration of the arrival of 2006 around Taipei 101.

Many people in Taiwan celebrate the end of the year with concerts in most of the cities and recently using a big screen on the stage to communicate with cities around the island by shouting Happy New Year to each other. The most crowded city is the capital Taipei which most people gather around Taipei 101 located in the shopping and financial area of Taipei. People gather around the roads around Taipei 101 and together they shout from 10 to zero. With each number they count, one of the layers of Taipei 101 (eight floor per layer) lights up until zero, the fireworks shoot out from the top of each layer (8 layers excluding a layer under the antenna) in different directions

Numerous decorations and customs traditionally associated with Christmas and Bayrams find a secular translation in Turkish New Year's Eve celebrations, where homes and streets are lit up in glittering lights, ornamented trees, and garlands as well as various traditional Turkish aesthetic practices. Small gifts are exchanged, and large family dinners are organized with family and friends, featuring roast turkey, a special Zante currant-pimento-dill iç pilav dish, dolma, hot börek, hummus, musakka and various other eggplant dishes, topped with warm pide, salep and boza.

Television and radio channels are known to continuously broadcast a variety of special New Year's Eve programs, while Municipalities all around the country organize fundraising events for the poor, in addition to celebratory public shows such as concerts and family-friendly events, as well as more traditional forms of entertainment such as the Karagöz and Hacivat shadow-theater and even performances by the Mehter - the Janissary Band that was founded during the days of the Ottoman Empire.

Public and private parties with large public attendances are organized in a number of cities and towns, particularly in the largest metropolitan areas such as Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir, Adana and Antalya, with the biggest celebrations taking place in Istanbul's Taksim, Beyoğlu, Nişantaşı and Kadıköy districts and Ankara's Kızılay Square, which generally feature dancing, concerts, laser and lightshows as well as the traditional countdown and fireworks display.

In Scotland it is customary to wait until the cannon is fired at Edinburgh Castle, this is a sign that the new year has begun.

There are also major celebrations across Scotland where it is known as Hogmanay. The traditional song Auld Lang Syne was written by Robert Burns, a Scottish poet. There are large street parties held in the major cities and Edinburgh and Glasgow are particularly renowned for their celebrations. The Edinburgh Hogmanay Street Party is attended by people from all over the world.

London's celebrations are the most covered. Since the construction of the London Eye, it has been the centre-point of a huge ten-minute fireworks display each year, illuminated with coloured lasers. At the start of 2005, fireworks were launched from the wheel itself for the first time.

Other large cities in Britain such as Liverpool, Leeds, Manchester, and Birmingham all have large celebrations. Strangely, Bideford in North Devon, which is tiny in comparison is often described as one of the best places to celebrate this event.^{[citation needed]} The typically quiet town, which used to be the third largest Port in Britain after London and Bristol, comes alive with the festivities and its New Year's Eve party draws people from miles around to gather on the quay for the countdown with many people dressing in fancy dress.

People who live in smaller towns like Preston and Weston-super-Mare celebrate with fireworks as well, but their celebrations are incomparable to the larger cities such as London, Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, etc.

Countdown 2006 in NYC.

In the United States, New Year's Eve is a major social holiday. The top destination city for the past three years has been New York, according to hotwire.com. [1] Las Vegas is also attracting a large number of New Year's Eve party goers with the famous Las Vegas strip being closed to vehicles and buses. The city is expected to host New Years Eve festivities for as many as 400,000 people according to lasvegasnow.com. [2]

In the past 100 years the "ball dropping" on top of One Times Square in New York City, broadcast to all of America (and rebroadcast in many other countries), is a major component of the New Year celebration. The 1,070-pound, 6-foot-diameter Waterford crystal ball located high above Times Square is lowered, starting at 23:59:00 and reaching the bottom of its tower at the stroke of midnight (00:00:00). It is sometimes referred to as "the big apple" like the city itself; the custom derives from the time signal that used to be given at noon in harbors.

From 1981 to 1988, New York City dropped an enlarged apple in recognition of its nickname. Since 1972, Dick Clark has hosted televised coverage of the event called Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve, shown on ABC-TV. From 1956 to 1976 on CBS-TV, Guy Lombardo (who died in 1977) and his Royal Canadians serenaded the United States from the ballroom of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel on Park Avenue in New York City. The Royal Canadians continued on CBS-TV until 1978. The song Auld Lang Syne has become a popular song to sing at midnight on New Year's Eve.

In Venezuela, many of the traditions are very similar to the ones from Spain, with an over-emphasis in traditions who supposedly will bring good luck in the year forthcoming. Those who want to find love in the New Year are supposed to wear yellow underwear on New Year's Eve; those who want money must have a bill of high value when toast, those who want to travel must go out home while carrying some luggage, and so on.

Usually, people listen to radio specials, which give a countdown and announce the New Year according to the legal hour in Venezuela, and, in Caracas, following the twelve bells from the Cathedral of Caracas. During these special programs is a tradition to broadcast songs about the sadness on the end of the year, being popular favorites "Viejo año" ("Old year") by Gaita group Maracaibo 15 and "Cinco pa' las 12" ("Five minutes before twelve") who was versioned by several popular singers like Nestor Zavarce, Nancy Ramos and José Luis Rodríguez El Puma. The unofficial hymn for the first minutes of the New Year is "Año Nuevo, Vida Nueva" ("New Year, New Life"), by the band Billo's Caracas Boys.

Many religious communities have a tradition of New Year's Eve being known as "Watch Night." The faithful of the community congregate in worship services commencing New Year's Eve night and continuing past midnight into the new year. The Watch Night is a time for giving thanks for the blessings of the outgoing year and praying for divine favor during the upcoming year. Though held by some to have begun in the African American community, watch night can actually be traced back to a sect of Christians known as the Moravians who held the first Watchnight Service in Herrnhut, Saxony, Germany, in 1732. The practice was later adopted by John Wesley, the founder of Methodism. Watch Night did take on special significance to African Americans on New Year's Eve 1862, however, as slaves eagerly awaited the arrival of January 1, 1863 -- the effective date of the Emancipation Proclamation. This particular New Year's Eve became known as "Freedom's Eve."^[2]

Organizations that support singles (divorced, separated, never married, or widowed) often have huge New Years Eve parties. For example, Professionals Guild, a social organization devoted to supporting single professionals in Northern California has huge New Years Eve parties in Sacramento and San Ramon, California. Because it is a special event, both couples and singles are welcome at these new year's eve celebrations. Video: Professionals Guild New Years Eve party.

Many cities in the United States of America have their own local version of the celebration, even while keeping an eye on New York, and the New York-centric aspect of the holiday is diminishing. Many cities, echoing the New York tradition of ball drop, also descend or lower an object (or an enlarged representation of an object), usually one of local significance. For examples, Orange County, California, and Orange County, New York, both drop large oranges (Orange County, Florida, tried it briefly, but has since ceased doing so). There are also examples of things going up. In Seattle the countdown is done by raising the Space Needle's elevator and launching fireworks up the side of the tower until both reach the top at midnight.

Further information: List of objects dropped on New Year's Eve

New Year's Eve is a major event in Las Vegas, Nevada, where the Las Vegas Strip is shut down as several hundred thousand people party. New Year's Eve is traditionally the busiest day of the year at Walt Disney World in Florida and Disneyland in California, where the parks stay open late and the usual nightly fireworks are supplemented by an additional New Years-specific show at midnight. In New Orleans, Louisiana, another of the most popular New Year celebration venues in North America, similar crowds of hundreds of thousands gather in the French Quarter, particularly on Bourbon and Canal Street, to celebrate the New Year.

Many cities also celebrate First Night, a non-alcoholic family-friendly New Year's Celebration, generally featuring performing artists, community events, parades, and fireworks displays. First Night began in Boston in 1976 and is now found in over 60 cities nationwide. A similar celebration is Providence, Rhode Island's Bright Night Providence,and an artist run arts celebration that started when Providence's First Night went bankrupt in 2003.

In several areas of the U.S., particularly major urban areas, New Year celebrations are punctuated by random celebratory gunfire, causing injuries and deaths. [3] [4] [5]. Police departments in many cities, aided by gun safety organizations, have attempted to crack down on this practice through technology [6] [7] and stiffer penalties [8] [9].

A New Year's Eve tradition in Hawaii and other areas is the un-condoned use of fireworks by local residents. Local governments have begun to severely limit this practice in recent years for numerous reasons, including its effect on people with breathing problems, thrill-seeking but dangerous twists on fireworks use (e.g. hanging fireworks from power lines), and unintended fires. Legislation approved by the Hawaii State Legislature has implemented a system of permits for fireworks use, yet this system is still frequently circumvented by locals.

It’s now possible to find live New Year’s celebrations on the Internet in addition to the usual televised New Year's Eve celebrations.

The Brent and Timmy Live New Year’s Show is a streaming comedy show broadcast in real time. This live New Year's show is available only on the Internet and covers approximately half of the world’s time zones.

Mobile phone manufacturer Nokia will host a 5 time zone, multi-major city party called "5 Cities. 1 Party" This event will be broadcast on the Internet and will feature well-known musical groups.

The specialty Las Vegas channel RawVegas.tv will be offering live coverage of Las Vegas New Years events and parties. This special broadcast is only available online via streaming broadband video feeds and will include celebrities that are in town to ring in the New Year.