Our celebration of New Year’s Day on January 1 is a human-made creation. It’s not precisely fixed by any natural or seasonal marker. It’s a civil event, not one defined by nature. Yet, for us in the Northern Hemisphere – where daylight recently ebbed to its lowest point and the days are starting to get longer again – there’s a feeling of rebirth in the air. New Year’s resolutions, anyone?
So where does the New Year’s Day concept come from?
It stems from an ancient Roman custom, the feast of the Roman god Janus. He was the god of beginnings, gates, transitions, time, duality, doorways, passages, frames, and endings. This is also where the name for the month of January comes from, since Janus was depicted as having two opposite faces. One face looked back into the past, and the other peered forward to the future.
Likewise, on January 1, we look back at the year that just ended and forward to the new year ahead.
To celebrate the new year, the Romans also made promises to Janus. The tradition of New Year’s resolutions stems from this ancient custom. On January 1, as the year began, it was customary to exchange cheerful words of good wishes. Shortly afterwards, on January 9, the rex sacrorum – a priesthood associated with the Roman Senate – offered the sacrifice of a ram to Janus. （earthsky.org）
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