The authentic New Year’s Eve is February’s last day, not December 31. The original New Year begins with the sowing season and celebrates spring’s prosperity. It has been a tradition for millennia and involves countless ancient and current cultures.
Traditionally, ancient festivities lasted from two to 15 days. People shared food, gifts, and other traditions related to love and prosperity, such as at Lupercalia, when young men and women joined as couples for at least a year.
Red and white have always been the traditional colors of the authentic new year, as red represents prosperity and white represents purity. No wonder why many ancient traditions worldwide choose these colors, such as Valentine’s Day.
Decluttering and cleaning is an ancient tradition that leaves the old in the past and makes space for the fantastic new.
In medieval Europe, Christians replaced the traditional New Year festivities with January 1 as the first day of the year because they said it had more religious significance, like December 25 (the anniversary of Jesus’ birth). Pope Gregory XIII established January 1 as the official New Year’s Day in 1582. But this was solely for convenience.
However, genuine New Year celebrations are much more meaningful and include festivities such as the beginning of the sowing season and celebrating the crops that would feed the entire population. Most mythologies, such as Chinese, Buddhist, Greek, German, Norse, and many others, celebrated the New Year in late February and March, always dedicating them to gods and goddesses of prosperity and love.
The first recorded New Year celebrations date back to ancient Babylon, 4,000 years ago. The Babylonians celebrated the New Year with the New Moon in March and had festivities for 11 days.
Unfortunately, the Catholic Church has tried to ignore original holidays and traditions to replace them with their Christian beliefs and dates, as has happened with the New Year and many other beautiful traditions.
Sources: History.com, britanica.com, nationalgeographic.com