What’s with the baby?
New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day are a time to both reflect on the past year and to look forward to the excitement the months ahead will bring. There may be confetti, there are probably noisemakers, and some bubbly is likely overflowing from champagne flutes.
New Year’s celebrations can be traced back thousands of years to ancient Babylon. And as with many holidays with deep histories, traditions are the hallmark of many New Year’s celebrations. While many people perform these traditions by rote, it can be interesting to delve into the history behind various components of New Year’s celebrations.
1. Baby New Year: One theory suggests Baby New Year was celebrated as far back as 600 B.C. in ancient Greece, when a child was paraded around in a basket upon the arrival of the new year. The baby represented rebirth, and Greeks believed their god of wine, Dionysus, was reborn on New Year’s as the spirit of fertility. Other historians say that the custom even predates the Greeks to the ancient Egyptians.
Even though the Baby New Year custom was originally frowned upon by Christians and deemed a pagan tradition, eventually Christians embraced the symbol as well, albeit in a different way. The end of the year is marked by the birth of the Christ child, and this became a special way to interpret Baby New Year.
In modern times, Baby New Year has lost any connection to a deity or religious figure. Rather, he is now interpreted as a child who arrives at the start of the year and eventually ages into Father Time.
The baby is depicted as an infant or toddler wearing a diaper and a sash with the year he is representing (and often a top hat). He is sometimes depicted holding or associated with an hourglass, a noisemaker or other item either pertaining to time or New Year’s Day festivities.
The Baby New Year/Father Time message boils down to “out with the old and in with the new.”
The Baby New Year idea eventually developed into a “first born” tradition as well. Many towns, cities and hospitals have instituted contests awarding the first baby born in the new year the coveted title in addition to gifts and news coverage.
2. Champagne: Toasting the new year with a sparkling wine can be traced back to French champagne producers. Champagne, a sparkling wine from a specific region of France, was used in the baptism of the Frankish warrior Clovis, according to the Champagne Committee of France.
Soon, champagne became a key part of religious events, coronations and soirees as well as secular rituals that replaced formerly religious rituals, according to the book “When Champagne Became French” by Kolleen Guy.
Champagne manufacturers eventually linked the bubbly to festive occasions with family, and New Year’s celebrations became another ideal time to pop the cork on a bottle.
3. Ball drop: While not everyone can venture to New York City’s famed Times Square to watch the ball drop in person, millions tune in around the world to watch it on television.
Original celebrations in New York centered around listening to the bells of Trinity Church ring at midnight, but the New Year’s Eve celebrations were later moved to the New York Times building in 1904. Fireworks were part of those celebrations, but hot ash and sparks falling on spectators led to a ban on fireworks, and event organizers needed another spectacle to draw crowds, according to PBS.
Publisher Adolph Ochs asked his chief electrician Walter Palmer to create something visually appealing. Inspired by the maritime tradition of dropping a time ball at harbor so sailors could set their own timepieces while at sea, Palmer devised the idea of dropping an illuminated ball on New Year’s Eve. This has been tradition since 1907.
4. Auld Lang Syne: This Scottish poem was written by Robert Burns in 1788. Burns claimed when he wrote the words down and put them to music, and later sent them to the Scots Musical Museum, that “Auld Lang Syne” was an ancient song, but he had been the first to record it on paper.
The phrase “auld lang syne” translates roughly to “for old times’ sake.” Others have translated it to mean “time goes by” or even as “once upon a time.”
The song is about preserving old friendships and reminiscing about events that occurred during the year. Many people sing it to evoke fellowship and nostalgia, though most cannot fully get past the first verse of the song.
Its lyrics are a challenge to the unfamiliar — even among those who grew up in the United Kingdom. According to a 2018 poll by the British supermarket chain Sainsbury’s, just 3% of people who live in England know the words to “Auld Lang Syne.” Among Scots, only 7% know all the lyrics. Even still, people may be content to hum along when “Auld Lang Syne” is traditionally sung on New Year’s Eve.
5. Resolutions: New Year’s resolutions may not have much staying power, but the tradition of making them is an enduring one that dates back thousands of years.
Ancient Babylonians are credited with being the first people to make New Year’s resolutions. During Akitu, a 12-day religious festival, the Babylonians would make promises to their gods, and these promises typically focused on being a better person in the coming year.
Celebrants of the festival, which was held when crops were planted, a time that marked the beginning of a new year to individuals in certain ancient societies, would promise the gods that they would repay their debts and return any items they had borrowed in the previous year.
While these promises might have been the forerunners to modern New Year’s resolutions, there is one distinct difference that separates ancient Babylonians from people in modern times. Babylonians believed keeping their word to the gods would curry favor for them in the coming year, while failure to keep their promises would do the opposite.
People who make resolutions today typically do so to better themselves and do not fear reprisal from their creator if they fail to live up to their pledges. That’s likely a good thing, as various reports suggest that as much as 80% of New Year’s resolutions are abandoned by the second week of February.