New Year's Day

“ However, the old custom of keeping open house and making New Year’s calls has practically disappeared.
“People are always glad to see the New Year and always welcome us in some glad and cheery way,” went on the New Year. “And it has always been the custom among all people to exchange gifts and greetings in the name of Happiness on New Year’s day. The Old Year is supposed to take away all sorrow and sadness, and the little New Year is supposed to bring nothing but happiness into the world, so it depends upon each person to see that he gets his share of the happiness.” ”

“ New Year's Day is the day of general rejoicing, when every one either visits or receives their friends: and so, thinking of the merry times we have had in Old England, and comparing them with the quietness of to-day, we feel more like strangers in a strange land than ever before.
"As a special treat, we are to have a real English Christmas dinner to-day, and our housekeeper has made a wonderful plum-pudding. The turkey is already steaming upon the table, and we soon fall to work upon him. ”

“ At the close of this day he who can reflect with satisfaction on the past, may anticipate with calm delight the entrance of the new year, and lift his eyes to the living lustres of the firmament with grateful feelings. They shine out their prismatic colours through the cold thin air, keeping watch while man slumbers, or cheering him, who contemplates their fires, to purposes of virtue. ”

“ To-morrow'll be of all the year the maddest, merriest day,
For I'm to be Queen o'the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o'the May.
NEW YEAR'S EVE.
If you're waking, call me early, call me early, mother dear,
For I would see the sun rise upon the glad new-year.
It is the last new-year that I shall ever see,—
Then you may lay me low i' the mold, and think no more of me. ”

“ It regards the events of only one day; still that day is not literal; it is a symbol of the life of everyone. It is New Year's Day, but every day is the beginning of a new year. It is a holiday, yet all life, when normally lived, is dominated by love and sympathetic service, and is full of happiness. ”

“ New Year's Day, a birthday, any change in place or manner of life, may well be made the occasion for a bout of "moral house-cleaning," which will give a new enthusiasm and vitality to our better natures. ”

“ New Year's Day is always a holiday. And well it is for the girls and boys of a parish, of a district, of a county, ay, of all Ireland, if it should rise upon them in the glowing beauty of a cloudless sun. ”

“ New Year's Day is made as much of as Christmas Day in that the people wear their best clothes, keep holiday and have a special dinner. We have had a nice quiet day, digging, reading and sketching. Sketching, as may readily be imagined, is often done under difficulties. ”

“ Nobody adds to the day's joy by wondering if they will be "alive next New Year's Day," nor become quite "huffy" if you cheerfully remark that they very probably will. It doesn't invite the melancholy to become reminiscent, nor the prophet to assume the mantle of Solomon Eagle. New Year's Day belongs to nobody but yourself, and what you are going to make of the 365 days which follow it. You regard the date as a kind of spiritual Spring Cleaning, and to good housewives there is all the vigorous promise of a Big Achievement even in buying a pot of paint and shaking out a duster. ”

“ Next to Christmas-day, the most pleasant annual epoch in existence is the advent of the New Year. There are a lachrymose set of people who usher in the New Year with watching and fasting, as if they were bound to attend as chief mourners at the obsequies of the old one. ”

“ Still my heart, then break it!—Yes, one day, when the free spirit spreads her wings in a fairer heaven, and when the New Year breaks upon a purer world—when we all meet, and love, again—then shall I lay my longings, prayers, and wishes at thy feet. ”

“ In those days the sound of those midnight chimes, though it seemed to raise hilarity in all around me, never failed to bring a train of pensive imagery into my fancy. Yet I then scarce conceived what it meant, or thought of it as a reckoning that concerned me. Not childhood alone, but the young man till thirty, never feels practically that he is mortal.”
Ringing out the old and ringing in the new year, with “a merry new year! a happy new year to you!” on new year’s day, were greetings that moved sceptred pride, and humble labour, to smiles and kind feelings in former times ”

“ The youth drew himself up to his full height.
“It is not a beast,” said he. “It is the branch of a holly-tree. On this day of the year, which in my country we call Christmas Day, our people decorate their houses with branches of this holly or holy tree as a token of love and peace and good-will. This is the message that I have brought to you—a message that we in our country know very well, but which you have never heard before.”
The King and the Warriors, the Wise Men, the Queen and Princesses all listened to his words in silence. ”

“ Since early impressions are likely to be permanent, it is considered most important in my fatherland to surround, Christmas with all joyous and holy associations. A day of days, indeed, it is with us—a day never to be forgotten.
So far is this feeling carried, that it is no uncommon pastime, even at the beginning of the new year, to project plans and presents, happy surprises, and unlooked-for offerings, to be presented at the far-off time of Christmas festivity. ”

“ God send us a happy New Year!
New Christmas Carols, A.D. 1642.
[Pg 236]
NEW-YEAR'S GIFTS.
The young men and maids on New-Year's day,
Their loves they will present
With many a gift both fine and gay,
Which gives them true content:
And though the gift be great or small,
Yet this is the custom still,
Expressing their loves in ribbons and gloves,
It being their kind good-will.
Young bachelors will not spare their coin,
But thus their love is shown ”

“ In many billets and in many halls the feast of New Year's day was kept in good comradeship by men who had faced death together, and who in the year that was coming fought in many battles and fell on many fields. ”

“ God send you a happy New Year!
For Christ's circumcision this day we keep,
Who for our sins did often weep;
His hands and feet were wounded deep,
And His blessed side with a spear.
His head they crownéd then with thorn,
And at Him they did laugh and scorn,
Who for to save our souls was born:
God send us a happy New Year!
And now with New-Year's gifts each friend
Unto each other they do send;
God grant we may all our lives amend,
And that the truth may appear. ”

“ I had spent the New Year's Day of old men, who differ on that day from their juniors, not because people have ceased to give them presents but because they themselves have ceased to believe in the New Year. ”

“ THE new year dawns, and its appearance is hailed by a flutter of festivity. Men and women run from house to house, scattering gifts, smiles, and congratulations. It is a custom that seems borrowed from a better day, unless indeed it be a prophecy that such must come. ”

“ The custom of giving presents on New Year's Day is as old as the time of the Romans, who attached superstitious importance to it, and thought the gifts brought them a lucky year. Our Christian forefathers retained the pleasant custom when its superstitious origin was long forgotten. Fathers and mothers used to delight each other and their little ones by their mutual gifts ”

“ They also adorned their houses with green boughs, which it appears, from Herrick, was a practice with many throughout the year,—box succeeding at Candlemas to the holly, bay, rosemary, and misletoe of Christmas,—yew at Easter to box,—birch and flowers at Whitsuntide to yew,—and then bents and oaken boughs. The whole nation were in as happy a ferment at Christmas, with the warmth of exercise and their firesides, as they were in May with the new sunshine. ”

“ The idle and the industrious are all up, "bright and early." The well-filled stockings are eagerly inspected, good wishes and pretty or useful presents given and received, and various plans proposed for the day's amusement. Night comes too soon for the tireless lovers of fun, who go unwillingly to bed, consoling themselves that one week more will bring New-Year. ”

“ The Old Year being dead, and the New Year coming of age, which he does, by calendar law as soon as the breath is out of the old gentleman’s body, nothing would serve the young spark, but he must give a dinner upon the occasion, to which all the Days in the year were invited. ”

“ They said that the tree was called a Christmas tree, because that strange fruit and that wonderful frosting came on it only in the Christmas time, and that the Christmas time was the time when men and women and little children, too, were always kind and good and loving, and gave things to one another; and they said, moreover, that on the Christmas tree grew the things which every one wanted, and which would make them happy, and that it was so, because in the Christmas time everyone was trying to make everyone else happy and to think of what other people would like. ”

“ It was really a daring stroke, so to time the revival that the first culmination of interest should be looked for on New Year's eve. On that day business, the dry sorts, would be apt to decline faster than the sun, and the nearness of New Year would make men—country buyers and horsemen in particular—social, thirsty, and adventurous. ”

“ Thanksgiving Day, generally the last Thursday in November, is sacred to the memory of our honored ancestors, who bravely and nobly endured the cold and want of that first New England winter, confident that the God whom they trusted and served would not forget them. ”

“ New Years Day is one holiday that there is no special form or design for, outside of the date of the year just passed linked by a hyphen with the year just starting. One pretty favor I have made is to run out large patties in any desired shade and with decorating icing pipe the dates on and a little vine or flower added, helps. ”

“ In the volume of “Elia,” an excellent paper begins with “Every man hath two birthdays: two days, at least, in every year, which set him upon revolving the lapse of time, as it affects his mortal duration. The one is that which in an especial manner he termeth his. In the gradual desuetude of old observances, this custom of solemnizing our proper birthday hath nearly passed away, or is left to children, who reflect nothing at all about the matter, nor understand any thing beyond the cake and orange. But the birth of a new year is of an interest too wide to be pretermitted by king or cobbler. ”

“ If he should come at the new year he will take pleasure in the new garments.”
So the winter wore on and it seemed to the woman that the man must surely come at the new year, a time [90] when all men go to their homes if they still live and are not beggars. So when any asked her she began to say, “He will come home for the new year festival,” and the old mother said a score of times a day, “When my son comes at new year....” ”

“ Let them not take the turkeys and gazelles and the calves and the rabbits and all the rest that they have chosen. Let the [Pg 158] tigers and leopards, and wolves and foxes and eagles, and hawks and owls and all their kind be content that their Christmas present shall be a lamb; and so we may come together again and have our happy Christmas tree, and each have what he wishes.”
“But,” said the lion, “what will you have? If you give yourself, then you will have no Christmas present.” ”

“ But to the slave mother New Year's day comes laden with peculiar sorrows. She sits on her cold cabin floor, watching the children who may all be torn from her the next morning; and often does she wish that she and they might die before the day dawns. ”

“ On New-Year day people are more disposed to wonder and speculate as to their fortunes during the year upon which they have entered than to reflect upon the occurrences of the past. Hence these ‘casts’ were most frequently made on that day. ”

“ “My dear,” was Bob’s mild answer, “Christmas Day.”
“I’ll drink his health for your sake and the Day’s,” said Mrs. Cratchit, “not for his. Long life to him! A merry Christmas and a happy new year! He’ll be very merry and very happy, I have no doubt!” ”