What is the origin of New Years celebrations?

I don’t really know, but if I had to guess, it was some Irishmen (I’m Irish by the way) looking for another reason to drink excessively.

The big feverish over-the-top celebration is in honor of my birthday.

@gailcalled Well in case I forget when the time comes…Happy Birthday!

Thanks, and sláinte to you,

@gailcalled They say you learn something new everday, well I have learned that the New Years celebration is in honor of your birthday. But I’m going to be greedy here, I would like to learn two new things today. What does “sláinte” mean?

I could tell you but that is bad teaching. Google it for a nice little surprise.

I recently learned on a Q that New Years is supposed to be the day Jesus was circumcized. I don’t really know how celebrating New Years evolved, but I guess maybe their was some Christian roots in it. Then over time media, new traditions, Capitalism, and commercialism probably took hold and built the holiday into a huge festive event. In Russia New Years is the big gift giving day. Maybe that is from communist Russia? Not sure. But, I know the tradition carries on.

I’ll be following to see what other information the collective has on the topic.

Haha, sláinte. The only reason I know that is…I guess I can’t say until our resident cannibal learns what it is but…Skål, for faen!!

No idea of the origin of New Year, but the Wiki article was pretty interesting, except I have no clue how reliable Wiki really is, unfortunately. :/ But it says on there that Jesus was circumcised on January 1st, except I don’t think that has anything to do with the New Year, because the article says that the New Year before was on the 25th of December, and was moved to the first not all that long ago.
Despite that, the Romans had their new year on January first, although I’m unclear as to whether or not they did anything special about it. when you make people massacre each other in a pit every weekend, who needs no n00jeaRz haha

source

The New Year has been observed by many different cultures though, from China to the Aztecs. Not sure who came up with it first…

You guys can celebrate Jesus getting his foreskin cut off. I’ll celebrate the new calendar year..

Because new numbers happened, any excuse for a piss-up!