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Different cultures and societies have always adopted different calendars, as they do today, and so the commencement of the New Year has always varied (from spring, to autumn, to winter). The ancient pagans believed that the world operated within an eternal framework of oscillating and recurring cycles. Some early cultures such as the Sumerian, Indian, and Chinese, universally held to the notion of never-ending, repeating, cyclic time. The Babylonians, Persians, and Greeks all held to 36,000 year cycles while the Hindus believed that the cycles were as long as 4.3 million years. The Mayans (Central America) taught that the world had been created, destroyed, and recreated at least four times, with the last recreation occurring on February 5, 3112 BC. The pagans understood time as a circle rather than an arrow. The earliest recorded New Year celebration is in Mesopotamia in Abraham’s day, when the vernal equinox (equal day and night) of mid-March was used. The Israelites’ New Year commenced in late September/early October, as did the Egyptians, Phoenicians, and Persians. Later, the Greeks recognized it at the winter solstice (December 21/22).

There is, of course, no biblical warrant for a religious commemoration of the New Year. Some of the same principled reasons that find fault with Christians endorsing Christmas in a religious sense could equally be applied to an overtly religious endorsement of New Year.

The Romans gave each other New Year gifts of branches from sacred trees. In later years, they gave gold-covered nuts or coins imprinted with pictures of Janus, the god of gates, doors, and beginnings. January was named after Janus, who had two faces—one looking forward and the other looking backward. By the Roman Republican calendar, the year began on March 1; after 153 BC the official date was January 1 and this was confirmed by the Julian calendar in 46 BC, named after Julius Caesar. It was at the Council of Tours in 567 that the Roman Catholic Church abolished January 1 in favor of different days during the subsequent centuries (March 1st; March 25; December 25, and Easter). For most of the following millennium, March 25 was used and also called Lady Day in honor of Mary and the annunciation (we noted in the preceding chapter, the link between March 25 and December 25). The Gregorian calendar, named after Pope Gregory XIII, was introduced in 1582 as it was more accurate (only one day out every 3,236 years, while the Julian calendar was one day out every 128 years). It was immediately adopted by Roman Catholic nations. Countries with less Roman Catholic influence gradually followed suit: Scotland in 1660; Germany and Denmark about 1700; England in 1752; Sweden in 1753; and Russia in 1918. This new calendar changed the commencement of the New Year back to January 1.

Kalends, the Roman New Year festival, began on January 1 and lasted until January 5. The Romans celebrated Kalends in much the same way they did Saturnalia. Early Christian writers condemned the carousing crowds. Nevertheless, some of the customs associated with Kalends were eventually absorbed into the celebration of Christmas. Called “kalends” (or “calends”), the Romans also used this word to refer to the first day of each month, within the framework of lunar phases. On this day, Roman officials posted the calendar for each month. The English word “calendar” comes from the old Latin term “kalends.” New consuls were inducted into office and for at least three days high festival was kept. The houses were decorated with lights and greenery, another precursor to the modern Christmas tree. As at the Saturnalia, masters drank and gambled with slaves. Vota, or solemn wishes of prosperity for the Emperor during the New Year, were customary and the people and the Senate were even expected to present gifts of money to him.

Emperor Caligula (ruling 37–41 AD) excited much disgust by publishing an edict requiring these gifts and by standing on the porch of his palace to receive them in person. Such gifts, not only presented to the emperor, but frequently exchanged between private persons were called strenae, a name still surviving in the French étrennes (New Years presents). A sprig of greenery taken from the groves dedicated to the goddess Strenia was considered a very traditional gift. Later, the Romans added cakes and honey (symbolizing a sweet New Year), and coins (symbolizing wealth) to the roster of traditional New Year gifts. Feasting, drinking, and merrymaking rounded out the festival. Kalends Eve celebrations resembled our own New Year’s Eve festivities. A fourth century Greek scholar named Libanius (314–393) wrote that almost everyone stayed up on Kalends Eve to usher in the New Year with drinking, singing, and revelry. Instead of spending the evening at home, crowds of people roamed through the streets, returning to their houses near daybreak to sleep off the night’s overindulgence. Sound familiar?

It will, therefore, be no surprise to discover that the present day Scottish traditions of Hogmany, staying up to “the bells” at midnight and New Year’s Day feasts, are no modern invention but mirror very closely the pagan practices in Roman times.

Indeed, the feast of Saturnalia and the Roman Kalends festival of New Year had only two days between them, and over time the customs of each became intertwined.

The Roman Catholic Church established the Feast of Mary, the Mother of God, on New Year’s Day. Moreover, on the same day, the Anglican and Lutheran churches celebrate the Feast of the Circumcision of Christ (based on the belief that if Jesus was born on December 25, then his circumcision on the eighth day of his life (Luke 2:21) was on January 1/2).

However, in spite of these new “Christian” holy days the church found itself unable to root out of people the immoral practices of Kalends, which is not a surprise given that the vast majority of those under Roman Catholic influence were not new creatures in Christ, changed within by the Holy Spirit but merely those who acknowledged the church’s religion outwardly. With the prominence given to Christmas, what happened over time was that most of the Kalends practices transferred into the Christmas festivities. The church’s recorded denunciations of such pagan festal practices are numerous, ranging in date from the fourth century to the eleventh and coming from Spain, Italy, Antioch, northern Africa, Constantinople, Germany, England, and various districts of what is now France. Attempts were made to root the practices out by making the first three days of the year a solemn fast with litanies (set, audible prayers, often chanted in processions). What disturbed the church most was the continued Kalends practices of cross-dressing, dressing as animals with animal skins and heads, auguries (interpreting the will of the gods by examining flight patterns of birds), the superstitions about fire, the giving of presents, and the excess of feasting, drunkenness, and general riot.

In a letter written in 742 by St. Boniface (born in England but missionary to Germany where he remains Germany’s patron saint) to Pope Zacharias, Boniface complained that certain:

Alamanni, Bavarians and Franks refused to give up various heathen practices because they had seen such things done in the sacred city of Rome, close to St. Peter’s and as they deemed, with the sanction of the clergy. On New Year’s Eve, it was alleged, processions went through the streets of Rome with impious songs and heathen cries, tables of fortune were set up and at that time no one would lend fire or iron or any other useful article to his neighbour.

They recount also that they have seen women wearing pagan amulets and bracelets on their arms and legs and offering them for sale.43

The Pope replied that these things were odious to him, should be so to all Christians and so in 743, all such practices at the January Kalends were formally forbidden by the Council of Rome. Most of the customs associated with either the modern New Year or the Roman one were anticipated by earlier festivals. As noted earlier, many of the Kalends practices shifted to Christmas. Most of the observances surrounding New Year rest on the principle that “a good beginning makes a good ending,” that as the first day is, so will the rest be. For example, if you would have plenty to eat during the year, dine lavishly on New Year’s Day, or if you would be rich, see that your pockets are not empty at this critical season. This is by no means exclusive to Europeans but is common among Hindus also. To this day in Scotland, visitors on New Year’s Day would be considered rude not to bring a gift with them.

Many ancient peoples performed rituals to do away with the past and purify themselves for the New Year. For example, some people put out fires they were using and started new ones (hence the Scottish custom for “first-footers” to bring with them a piece of coal as a gift). The Celts (as we noted earlier) celebrated the New Year (Samhain) on November 1, marking the end of summer and the harvest and the beginning of the cold, dark winter ahead (this was a precursor to Halloween). They built “sacred” bonfires to scare off evil spirits and to honor their sun god. Throughout Britain even to recent times, pagan superstitions lay behind many odd traditions and rituals. For many centuries among Slavs, the first visitor to one’s house on Christmas Day was considered very important and may be compared with “first-footing” in Scotland on January 1. The character of the first visitor was believed to determine the welfare of the household throughout the coming year and the superstitions surrounding the event are many and varied in number from region to region. Due to the fact that Christmas was abolished in Scotland during the late sixteenth century, New Year assumed a greater significance in Scotland than in probably any other European country. It is only through the spread of Anglicanism, the resurgence of Roman Catholicism, and the demise of Protestant Church attendance throughout the twentieth century, that Christmas has come to rival New Year in popularity.

43. Tangl, Letters of Saint Boniface, 50.