Have a Happy New Year!

January is named after the Roman god Janus who had two faces, one looking forward and the other looking backward. Janus was also the Roman god of gates, doors, and beginnings. The first day of January was a day to honor Janus in Roman times. In other lands, the New Year was celebrated on various dates before the adoption of the Gregorian Calendar in 1752.

For instance, the Chinese New Year is celebrated on the first day of the lunar calendar. In England, the Feast of the Annunciation on March 25, was the first day of the new year. In India, New Year falls in April on the Hindu calendar. However, as countries began to adopt the Gregorian Calendar, New Year's Day is celebrated almost universally on January 1 around the globe.

The singing of "Auld Lang Syne" is one of our most enduring New Year's traditions, but there are many other songs associated with the New Year. These links will give you more songs and poems for the New Year.

New Year Songs

New Year Acrostic - a Poem for the New Year

New Year Poems

Top Ten Songs for New Year's

One of the big traditions of the New Year is to make a list of resolutions to start the New Year off on better footing than the old year ended. Common resolution involve weight loss, exercise, healthier eating habits as well as personal interaction and work resolutions.

Wikipedia lists the following as popular New Year Resolutions:

* Improve health: lose weight, exercise more, eat better, drink less alcohol, quit smoking
* Improve finances: get out of debt, save money
* Improve career: get a better job
* Improve education: improve grades, get a better education, learn something new (such as a foreign language or music)
* Improve self: become more organized, reduce stress, be less grumpy, manage time, be more independent, perhaps watch less television
* Take a trip
* Volunteer to help others

More New Year Resolutions

Top 5 New Year's Resolutions for health & fitness from US Government

How to Make Healthier New Year's Resolutions

2009 New Year's Resolutions of Gospel Artists

Another popular New Year tradition is to eat foods that are believed to be lucky to improve the odds that next year will be a prosperous one. Each culture has its own food traditions, but website like Good Housekeeping and Epicurious have found similarities in foods associated with luck and the New Year in different parts of the world. According to Epicurious, the six major categories of auspicious foods are grapes, greens, fish, pork, legumes, and cakes.

Some of the special foods we enjoy in the South on New Year's Day include black-eyed peas, collard greens, and ham hock (see photo)... but I usually skip the collard greens and hog jowl and opt for black-eyed peas and pork! The "good luck" tradition of eating black-eyed peas at Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, is recorded in the Babylonian Talmud (compiled ~500 CE), according to Wikipedia, so black-eyed peas have a long history as a New Year food.

Lucky Foods for the New Year

Top 10 healthy New Year's resolutions
New Year's Resolutions are on a lot of people's minds with the New Year coming up, but resolutions can bring a sense of disappointment and guilt when we start breaking them.

Top 5 New Year's Resolutions for health & fitness from US Government
In an article on SkinHealthBeauty, a list is presented of 12 New Year's Resolutions the US Government says are popular each year. Out of those 12 New Year's Resolutions, five are directly related to health and wellness.

Top 5 Healthy New Year's Resolutions Per US Government
The US government has come up with a list of 12 New Year's Resolutions which are popular year after year.

How to Make Healthier New Year's Resolutions
With the New Year fast approaching, many people are thinking about New Year's Resolutions. However, for many of us, New Year's Resolutions often bring disappointment and guilt when a week or a day into the New Year, we start breaking our resolutions.

How to Lose Weight in the New Year: New Year's Resolutions
Losing weight is at the top of most women's New Years Resolutions.

The problem with being fat: New Year's resolutions
eight is a problem that can't be hidden. It is no mystery when a person is overweight, and no amount of manicures, hair colorings, makeup, fashionable clothing or expensive accessories will disguise it. That's why losing weight is at the top of so many New Years resolutions lists.

A variety of articles about everything New Year's!

A Nashville New Year: New Year's Eve & New Year's Day Activities in Nashville, Tennessee

Top Ten Songs for New Year's

2009 New Year's Resolutions of Gospel Artists

While Elin Nordegren Celebrates a Happy New Year, Tiger Woods Not so Much

New Year Acrostic - a Poem for the New Year