New Year's Eve

“ It is customary, every New Year's eve in America, to ring bells, fire guns, send up rockets, and, in many other ways, to show joy and gratitude that the old year has been so kind, and that the new year is so auspicious. ”

“ At Christmas and New Year you are emboldened and encouraged by convention to send gushing messages of optimistic goodwill and servile affection to people whom you would scarcely ask to lunch unless some one else had failed you at the last moment; if you are supping at a restaurant on New Year’s Eve you are permitted and expected to join hands and sing ‘For Auld Lang Syne’ with strangers whom you have never seen before and never want to see again. ”

“ The evening which of all others is the most adapted for witchery, is New Year’s eve. It is a very ill practice to spend this evening at a ball, and it is an acknowledged fact that ill luck, more or less, follows a person throughout the year, who has danced the old year out and the new year in. ”

“ In some European nations, especially France and Scotland, New Year’s Day is a more important holiday than Christmas. If you were a French peasant child you might put a wooden shoe on the hearth for a gift at Christmas, but grownups in France exchange gifts at the New Year festival, at which time there are family parties, with much merrymaking.
“In America the observance of New Year’s Day is varied. New Year’s Eve there are ‘watch night’ services in the churches—gay street revelers—dancing and theater parties; and New Year’s Day is a time for general entertaining and visiting. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The last glass of wine or spirits drained from the last bottle on New Year’s Eve or Day is called the “lucky glass.” It brings good fortune to whoever comes in for it, and if an unmarried person drinks it he will be the first to marry among the company. You must take note what is the Christian name of the first person you see of the opposite sex on New Year’s Day: it will be that of the future husband or wife.
On New Year’s Day much importance is attached to the first foot which crosses the threshold. That of a fair man is luckier than of a dark one, but (alas for the chivalry of the North!) ”

“ Welcome, merry Christmas and New-Year! prized by children above all other days in the year. Ye are associated with pleasant recollections of old Santa Claus and sugar-plums—with bright visions of a cheerful fireside, merry games, pleasant stories, and happy, smiling faces. First comes Christmas Eve, when each young face beams with eager curiosity and delightful anticipation—all wondering and guessing what they shall find in their stockings next morning ”

“ Before we separate we must all pledge ourselves in lemonade, et cetera, and wish one another ‘A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!’ Perhaps in all the year the few merry hours of Christmas Eve are the brightest and happiest to the whole world. ”

“ When New Year’s Eve draws on, these and all other vexations are dismissed, as unworthy to interfere with that repose of mind in which each genuine marked period of the individual human life should close. In one sense, it does not seem real to begin a new year in the very midst of the dead season in which the preceding closes ”

“ Christmas Eve—'whose red signal fires shall glow through gloom and darkness till all the years be done'—the season of plum-pudding and holly, mistletoe and carolling, and of kind-hearted generosity, when the traditional stocking is filled, and the green branches of the festive tree are loaded with every species of 'goodies,' for excited and expectant little folks; and 'once a year,' the eve that, of all others, makes the place of those whom death has taken seem doubly vacant, and when the baby that came since last Christmas is hailed with a new joy ”

“ To end the old year merrily and begin the new one well, and in friendship with their neighbours, were the objects which the common [124] people had in view in the celebration of this tide or festival. New-Years Eve, therefore, was spent in festivity and frolic by the men; and the young women of the village carried about, from door to door, a bowl of spiced ale, which they offered to the inhabitants of every house where they stopped, singing at the same time some rude congratulatory verses, and expecting some small present in return. ”

“ wandering in Pagan lands.—I counsel thee, shut not thy heart, nor thy library, against S.T.C.
NEW YEAR'S EVE Every man hath two birth-days: two days, at least, in every year, which set him upon revolving the lapse of time, as it affects his mortal duration. ”

“ But our space does not permit us to inquire at length in the present volume into any other customs than those which belong to an English Christmas season. We have only been able occasionally to advert to others, even amongst our own sister nations, when they helped to throw light upon those which on this occasion are our immediate subject. We must therefore return at once to the only general and conspicuous observance of this eve in England, viz., that which is commonly called "seeing the New Year in." ”

“ 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. ”

“ What fun it is to build the snow man, and even if the hands get cold, the eyes shine brighter than in warm days and the cheeks [169] are rosy as the reddest flower. "Hurrah for Winter!" shout the boys. The merriest holidays I have when all hearts are gay and filled with loving care for others. I would not change, dear Father Time, with any of my sisters. I say good-by to the passing year and welcome the new year. If the old year has had troubles and sorrows, all the people turn with hope to the new, and call to one another the wish, "A Happy New Year to all!" ”

“ 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. ”

“ Reflect upon your present blessings—of which every man has many—not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some. Fill your glass again with a merry face and contented heart. Our life on it, but your Christmas shall be merry and your New Year a happy one.
“So may the New Year be a happy one to you, happy to many more whose happiness depends on you! ”

“ The New Year has entered our quiet, little northern home, on the noisy Corso, with an occurrence which has made a new year in the life of my young friend, and has gladdened me with the sight of the power of pure love and gratitude in the female heart. ”

“ But there were others in that city who saw nothing in the bright red sky to assure them that the new year was likely to prove to them any better than the old, and who would have been glad enough, amid many years of want and sorrow, to have one happy new year. ”

“ We are all of us familiar with the usual ceremonies which usher in the New Year—the sitting up to watch the Old Year out and the New Year in, the ringing of the church bells immediately after the last stroke of twelve, the handshaking, and exchange of greetings. ”

“ Its smiles and its tears, its hopes and its fears,
Its labors and duties, all done.
We stand face to face with the New Year,
Nor know what it hides from our sight;
God grant that it be kind to you, and to me,
That it lead us in ways that are light.
The bells in the steeples are joyful,
The children are shouting in glee,
There is mirth and good cheer in the happy New Year--
All hail to young '73! ”

“ If Easter is developed in a celebration of song or procession, of sermon and of decoration, with full use of its symbolic value, it is sure to bring the whole countryside together, in an experience of the New Year rising from the grave of winter and of the divine Lord risen from the dead. ”

“ 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. ”

“ We are now four days from the feast of the Nativity, and many things commonly regarded as distinctive of Christmas have already come under notice. We have met, for instance, with several kinds of present-giving, with auguries for the New Year, with processions of carol-singers and well-wishers, with ceremonial feasting that anticipates the Christmas eating and drinking, and with various figures, saintly or monstrous, mimed or merely imagined, which we shall find reappearing at the greatest of winter festivals. ”

“ Yet every body insists on hundreds of ghosts at Christmas—if we may judge from the volumes of literature devoted to their interests at that time.
Christmas and New Year seasonable festivities are only suitable to the very young or very old. ”

“ That is how the New Year arrives in England. In Scotland there is more ceremony. There it used to be the custom for the whole household to sit up till twelve o'clock and bring in the New Year with singing and frolic. But that custom is dying out.
You children, I hope, get to know about the New Year in the morning. You find that everybody is looking happy, and wishing happiness to other people. Even although the sun is not shining there is brightness in the house and in the street. People when they meet shake hands and joke and laugh. ”

“ 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. ”

“ If every French servant looks for some particular perquisite, they all expect a gratuity at the New Year. One of the greatest curses and greatest blessings which rest upon Paris is the custom of presenting New Year’s gifts. ”

“ At Christmas it is perfectly safe to let our scientific principles go and just remember the Lord’s command that we love one another. I subscribe to them all with perfect loyalty, and try to practise them till Christmas week comes [Pg 91] in with its holly and the smell of balsam and fir, and the memories of childhood in the Old Town; then—well, anyway, it is only a little while. New Year and the long cold winter come soon enough. ”

“ The Queen is accustomed to spend Christmas Day very quietly, attending service at the Chapel at Osborne in the morning, and in the evening the Royal family meeting at dinner. There are Christmas trees for the children, and for the servants too, but the houshold reserves its principal festivity for the New Year—a day which is specially set aside for their entertainment. ”

“ But New Year's Day, except in Scotland, where, I believe, you are expected to go out and get drunk—always an easy obligation!—brings with it nothing but another year, and possesses all the "tonic" quality of novelty, besides the promise of a much happier and luckier one than the Old Year which has just been scratched off the calendar. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Early on New Year’s morning the usque-cashrichd, or water from the dead and living ford, is drunk, as a potent charm until next New Year’s Day, against the spells of witchcraft, the malignity of evil eyes, and the activity of all infernal agency. ”

“ Now that the Laureate’s song would be worth the listening to, we have none written especially for the New Year. This musical festival has ceased to be.—N. & Q. 4th S. vol. xi. p. 8.
Latterly, New Year’s Day has been celebrated with but little public festivity, the only open joyous demonstration being the sound of merry peals from the church bells, as they ring out the Old and ring in the New Year.
Many persons make a point of wearing new clothes on this day, and consider any omission of the kind unlucky. At court it is one of the twelve Offering Days.—Med. Ævi Kalend. Hampson, 1841, vol. i. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The Christmas week, however, is a merry one for the honeymoon, as little is thought of but mirth and gaiety until313 the dawning New Year soberly suggests that we should put aside our masquerade manners.
In drawing-room amusements society has a wealth of pleasing indoor pastimes. We remember the sententious Question réunions, the hilarious Surprise parties, Fairy-bowl, and Hunt-the-slipper. ”