Happy New Year!

2008 bows out and we ring in 2009. Approximately 4,000 years ago, the Babylonians celebrated the new year at the first new moon after the vernal equinox. The Romans continued the springtime new year, but each emperor could not leave the calendar alone, so the date kept shifting. The Senate finally adopted the Julian calendar and started the new year on January 1. 

The Julian calendar had a 10 month year which is why Sept., Oct., Nov. & Dec. come from the Latin for 7, 8,9, and 10. They are now the 9th, 10th, 11th and 12th months because later calendar revisions added the months of July and August (after Julius and Augustus Caesar).

January is named for Janus (in Latin Ianus), the god of the doorway. He has two faces on his head looking in opposite directions - back at the old year and forward into the new year. 

New Year's Eve and Day have many traditions. Listening to Guy Lombardo and the Royal Canadians play "Auld Lang Syne",  watching the ball drop on Times Square, eating Hoppin' John. But the tradition that is closest to my heart is the Mummer's Parade in Philadelphia. Not the Broad Street parade, but the informal parade down Two Street after the official parade. Nothing says Happy New Year like doing the Mummer's Strut to "O Dem Golden Slippers" surrounded by a group of inebriated clowns, men in drag and other mummers! - as ever - BB

"New Year's is a harmless institution, of no particular use to anybody save as scapegoat for promiscuous drunks, friendly calls and humbug resolutions." - Mark Twain