Although birthdays and Christmas are probably the biggest celebrations in our year, many cultures around the world don’t celebrate birthdays or Christmas. The festival that is observed in the most areas of the world has got to be New Year – although not necessarily on the same date as ours.

The earliest recorded festivities for New Year date back to ancient Babylon, about 4,000 years ago. For the Babylonians, the first new moon following the vernal equinox heralded the start of a new year. The vernal equinox was the day in late March that had an equal amount of sunlight and darkness, so they probably celebrated New Year in April. They marked the occasion with a massive religious festival called Akitu that involved a different ritual on each of its 11 days. Champagne and fireworks were not involved though; it was all about appeasing the gods.

However, in most countries around the world, like our own, parties are held on New Year’s Eve, fireworks are let off, and people drink champagne and make new resolutions for the coming year.

There are some different customs though. In Ecuador, it’s a New Year’s Eve tradition for some men to dress as women the days before New Year’s Eve, representing the ‘widow’ of the year that has passed.

In Spain it is traditional to eat twelve grapes, one on each chime of the clock. In Venezuela, yellow underwear is worn to bring happiness in the new year, or red for those who want to find love.

Most resolutions involve self-improvement of some kind, such as eating healthy food, losing weight, exercising more, quitting smoking, or generally changing bad habits such as biting nails.

New Year resolutions have been made since ancient times. Those Babylonians I mentioned before made promises to their gods at the start of each year that they would return borrowed objects and pay their debts and still nowadays, many religions include new resolutions to reflect upon one’s wrongdoings over the year, and both seek and offer forgiveness.

Some of our puzzlers make resolutions to get their brains more active by doing more crosswords or learning a new skill such as a language or a musical instrument.

Wishing you a Happy and Puzzling New Year!