Most of my friends will end up watching football in their underwear, drinking tall PBRs on New Year’s Eve. The likelihood they will last to the witching hour is quite slim. Most of them, such as David Grima, will reject 4,000 years of history and sleep through the rites and rituals of the very New Year.
We can trace all of this madness to Babylon, about 4,000 years ago. Those crazy Babylonians held New Year’s in late March. Their thinking was the first moon after the vernal equinox — the day with an equal amount of light and darkness — was the correct time to party, dude. Because they had to party, they organized a “religious” festival called “Akitu,” which celebrated the barley crop. You know what you make with barley, I presume.
If you liked barley that was all right, until those pesky Romans took over the known world. In the eighth century B.C., Romulus, the possible founder of Rome, decided that a new 10-month calendar was needed. A later king, Numa Pompilius, added January and February, possibly to spur sales in the calendar market. You remember Julius Caesar, of course. He wanted the calendar to align with the sun (makes sense), so in 46 B.C. he organized a task force with astronomers and mathematicians. They developed the Julian calendar (he got to name it) that still is used today, even by Grima.
Let’s face it, you need a party on the last day of December, when the sun goes down just after lunch and the snow (not this year) is piling up in the driveway. Late March is just the opposite. You have longer days, you can see the grass and there is St. Patrick’s Day. New Year’s on Jan. 1 is preferable, thank you.
Everyone, except Grima, loves to get their freak on for New Year’s Eve. You can get away with almost anything. No lampshade is safe. In Spain the celebration starts with eating a dozen grapes, just before midnight. Others take their grapes in the wine bottle form. Many nations celebrate with legumes, such as lentils in Italy and black-eyed peas in the American South. Pork apparently signifies progress and prosperity in Cuba, Austria, Hungary and Portugal, and it is enjoyed in massive quantities.
In the Netherlands, ring-shaped cakes and pastries, signifying the full circle of the year are wolfed down, without football games. In Sweden and Norway, they serve rice pudding with an almond hidden inside. Whoever finds the nut can expect good fortune for the year. The rest are invited to return to their humdrum lives.
I like the Denmark model. Danes save old plates during the year. On the holiday, they throw them at the door of their best friends. When you wake up the next day, you find out how many friends you have. That’s fun. In Switzerland, they drop a scoop of ice cream on the floor to drive away bad spirits and draw in good ones. Messy, but still fun.
On New Year’s Eve, you must sing “Auld Lang Syne” even though no one knows the words or meaning. The resolution-making activity dates back to those crazy Babylonians who thought they might impress the gods. To impress these gods, they would even pay off old debts and return borrowed farm equipment. I don’t have any farm equipment to speak of, but I have owed Eastern Tire $50 for most of the year. Maybe I should pay that off.
We all know about dropping that damned ball in Times Square, which dates back to 1907 and has become trite and dated. I would rather watch the dropping of pickles in Dillsburg, Pennsylvania, or possums in Tallapoosa, Georgia, on the stroke of midnight. In Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, they drop an illuminated wrench on the stroke of midnight. In nearby East Pennsboro Township, they drop a seven-foot, 50-pound nail from a fire engine at the stroke of midnight. The town was once the home of the Harrisburg Nail Works, for your information.
I don’t know about you, but I am taking my tall PBRs to East Pennsboro Township. Forget Times Square.
Emmet Meara lives in Camden in blissful retirement after working as a reporter for the BDN in Rockland for 30 years.