Does anybody know why January 1 is New Year’s Day?
We know a lot more about Christmas, though we never think about it. It was the birthday of Mithras established by Constantine. No one ever THINKS about that, they just recite it, as they do all history Mommy Professor didn’t hammer in. They get classes dedicated to the birthday of Saint Martin Luther the King, but Mithras is mentioned in case they play Trivial Pursuits.
The beginning of the New Year was probably the first major piece of real knowledge the shamans actually possessed. Every year the Northern world got colder and colder and death surrounded them. Only when information passed from one generation to another did those who did that discover that the sun came back every year.
Then they discovered the DATE at which the sun began to come back. This was not as obvious as one may at first think.
After all, while the northern hemisphere does indeed reach its maximum distance from the sun at Winter Solstice, the weather keep getting colder right into February. So it was quite an intellectual achievement when, looking forward to an even deader January and February, our forefathers CELEBRATED December 21 or 22.
In fact, dates were something ancient Wise Men took very seriously, because it was about the only solid information they had. This makes it mysterious, at least to the two or three people on earth who actually THINK about, that the Magi would have changed the date to December 25.
In fact, there is probably an even simpler explanation as why January 1 was set as New Year’s Day. I just have no idea what it was.
Have you ever noticed how January 1 is ONLY traditional date that no one ever celebrated. Even the Jews dug around in their history and found the Festival of Lights at Christmas. Thanksgiving was celebrated in England regularly before the Pilgrims were the first settlement and invented it.
Jamestown had Thanksgiving, but Jamestown didn’t exist. THINKING about history can make one what the PCs and blacks call Ignunt. May Day was pagan and I am willing to bet every Semitic religion had its own version of Passover.
All dates have predecessors.
Except New Year’s.
#1 by shari on 01/01/2010 - 10:51 am
The Orthodox Christmas isn’t until Jan7 and the new year on Jan.14 because of different calendars. But obviously there is some connection, of one week, between the two dates. I have no idea what that is.
#2 by DeepfriedElvis on 01/03/2010 - 12:29 am
Actually the earth’s axis is tilted away from the sun at maximum on the 21st of Dec. Earth is Farthest away from the sun around July 3, aphelion day. It’s just that the earths orbit is near circular and the 1-2% closer distance is virtually unoticable compared the the drastic deline in amount of sunlight per square meter when the suns angle dips in winter. In early January Earth is at perhelion, closest point in it’s elliptical orbit to the sun. Not very noticeable except we are moving faster in our orbit and winter is a few days shorter than summer in the Northern Hemisphere, that’s why February is so brief.