My New Year PSP Tubes here..all rar files

New Year's Eve here in my home town Sydney

   
Happy New Year  Words    

Saturday May 29, 2010 11:11:48 PM

 

 

Not all countries celebrate New Year at the same time, nor in the same way. This is because people in different parts of the world use different calendars. Long ago, people divided time into days, months, and years. Some calendars are based on the movement of the moon, others are based on the position of the sun, while others are based on both the sun and the moon. All over the world, there are special beliefs about New Year.

Ancient Egypt

In ancient Egypt, New Year was celebrated at the time the River Nile flooded, which was near the end of September. The flooding of the Nile was very important because without it, the people would not have been able to grow crops in the dry desert.
At New Year, statues of the god, Amon and his wife and son were taken up the Nile by boat. Singing, dancing, and feasting was done for a month, and then the statues were taken back to the temple.

Babylonia

Babylonia lay in what is now the country of Iraq. Their New Year was in the Spring. During the festival, the king was stripped of his clothes and sent away, and for a few days everyone could do just what they liked. Then the king returned in a grand procession, dressed in fine robes. Then, everyone had to return to work and behave properly. Thus, each New Year, the people made a new start to their lives. The celebration of the new year is the oldest of all holidays. It was first observed in ancient Babylon about 4000 years ago. In the years around 2000 BC, Babylonians celebrated the beginning of a new year on what is now March 23, although they themselves had no written calendar. The Babylonian new year celebration lasted for eleven days. Each day had its own particular mode of celebration, but it is safe to say that modern New Year's Eve festivities pale in comparison.

Other traditions of the season include the making of New Year's resolutions. That tradition also dates back to the early Babylonians. Popular modern resolutions might include the promise to lose weight or quit smoking. The early Babylonian's most popular resolution was to return borrowed farm equipment.

 Romans


The Romans continued to observe the new year on March 25, but their calendar was continually tampered with by various emperors so that the calendar soon became out of synchronization with the sun. In order to set the calendar right, the Roman senate, in 153 BC, declared January 1 to be the beginning of the new year. But tampering continued until Julius Caesar, in 46 BC, established what was come to be known as the Julian Calendar. It again established January 1 as the new year. But in order to synchronize the calendar with the sun, Caesar had to let the previous year drag on for 445 days.

Although in the first centuries AD the Romans continued celebrating the new year, the early Catholic Church condemned the festivities as paganism. But as Christianity became more widespread, the early church began having its own religious observances concurrently with many of the pagan celebrations, and New Year's Day was no different. New Years is still observed as the Feast of Christ's Circumcision by some denominations. 

The New Year has not always begun on January 1, and it doesn't begin on that date everywhere today. It begins on that date only for cultures that use a 365-day solar calendar. January 1 became the beginning of the New Year in 46 B.C., when Julius Caesar developed a calendar that would more accurately reflect the seasons than previous calendars had.

 

The Romans named the first month of the year after Janus, the god of beginnings and the guardian of doors and entrances who was always shown as having two heads. He looked back to the last year and forward to the new one.  He was always depicted with two faces, one on the front of his head and one on the back. Thus he could look backward and forward at the same time. At midnight on December 31, the Romans imagined Janus looking back at the old year and forward to the new. The Romans began a tradition of exchanging gifts on New Year's Eve by giving one another branches from sacred trees for good fortune. Later, nuts or coins imprinted with the god Janus became more common New Year's gifts. The Roman New Year festival was called the Calends, and people decorated their homes and gave each other gifts. Slaves and their masters ate and drank together, and people could do what they wanted to for a few days. 

Although the early Christians denounced the practice as pagan, the popularity of the baby as a symbol of rebirth forced the Church to re-evaluate its position. The Church finally allowed its members to celebrate the new year with a baby, which was to symbolize the birth of the baby Jesus.

The use of an image of a baby with a New Years banner as a symbolic representation of the new year was brought to early America by the Germans. They had used the effigy since the fourteenth century.

 Celts

The Celts were the people who lived in Gaul, now called France, and parts of Britain before the Romans arrived there. Their New Year festival was called Samhain. It took place at the end of October, and Samhain means 'summer's end'.
At Samhain, the Celts gathered mistletoe to keep ghosts away, because they believed this was the time when the ghosts of the dead returned to haunt the living.

Jewish 

The Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah, is celebrated on the first two days of the Jewish calendar's first month, Tishri, which falls in September or October. The Jewish New Year is heralded by the rabbi blowing a shofar, or ram's horn, in the synagogue. The Islamic year starts anew every 354 days. Because there are no adjustments, like Leap Year, to make each calendar year correspond to the earth's cycle around the sun, the first month of the Islamic calendar, Muharram, is not in the same season every year.

It is a holy time when people think of the things they have done wrong in the past, and they promise to do better in the future.

Special services are held in synagogues, and an instrument called a Shofar, which is made from a ram's horn is played. Children are given new clothes, and New Year loaves are baked and fruit is eaten to remind people of harvest time.

Muslim 

The Muslim calendar is based on the movements of the moon, so the date of New Year is eleven days earlier each year.
Iran is a Muslim country which used to be called Persia. The people celebrate New Year on March 21, and a few weeks before this date, people put grains of wheat or barley in a little dish to grow. By the time of New Year, the grains have produced shoots, and this reminds the people of spring and a new year of life.

Hindu New Year

Most Hindus live in India, but they don't all celebrate New Year in the same way or at the same time.
The people of West Bengal, in northern India, like to wear flowers at New Year, and they use flowers in the colours of pink, red, purple, or white. Women like to wear yellow, which is the colour of Spring.
In Kerala, in southern India, mothers put food, flowers, and little gifts on a special tray. On New Year's morning, the children have to keep their eyes closed until they have been led to the tray.
In central India, orange flags are flown from buildings on New Year's Day.
In Gujarat, in western India, New Year is celebrated at the end of October, and it is celebrated at the same time as the Indian festival of Diwali. At the time of Diwali, small oil lights are lit all along the roofs of buildings.
At New Year, Hindus think particularly of the goddess of wealth, Lakshmi.
 
Buddhist
 
On New Year's Eve, Buddhist temples ring out the old year by letting passers by each ring a huge bell once until it has rung 108 times, one time for each kind of evil in the world. On New Year's Day, it is traditional to make a pilgrimage to a Shinto shrine or a Buddhist temple.

 Far East Vietnam

In Vietnam, the New Year is called Tet Nguyen Dan or Tet for short. It begins between January 21 and February 19, and the exact day changes from year to year. They believe that there is a god in every home, and at the New Year this god travels to heaven. There he will say how good or bad each member of the family has been in the past year.
They used to believe that the God travelled on the back of a fish called a carp, and today, they sometimes buy a live carp, and then let it go free in a river or pond. They also believe that the first person to enter their house at New Year will bring either good or bad luck.

Japan

In Japan, New Year is celebrated on January 1, but the Japanese also keep some beliefs from their religion, which is called Shinto. To keep out evil spirits, they hang a rope of straw across the front of their houses, and this stands for happiness and good luck. In Japan, New Year's is celebrated for three days, starting on January 1. Everyone receives new clothes and little work is done. The moment the New Year begins, the Japanese people begin to laugh, and this is supposed to bring them good luck in the new year.

Chinese New Year

The Chinese New Year is celebrated some time between January 17 and February 19, at the time of the new moon, and it is called Yuan Tan. It is celebrated by Chinese people all over the world, and street processions are an exciting part of their New Year. The Festival of Lanterns is the street processions, and thousands of lanterns are used to light the way for the New Year.
The Chinese people believe that there are evil spirits around at New Year, so they let off firecrackers to frighten the spirits away. Sometimes they seal their windows and doors with paper to keep the evil spirits out.
In Europe, New Year was often a time for superstition and fortune-telling, and in some parts of Switzerland and Austria, people dress up to celebrate Saint Sylvester's Eve.
In AD 314, there was a Pope called Saint Sylvester, and people believed that he captured a terrible sea monster. It was thought that in the year 1000, this sea monster would escape and destroy the world, but since it didn't happen, the people were delighted. Since then, in parts of Austria and Switzerland, this story is remembered at New Year, and people dress up in fantastic costumes, and are called Sylvesterklauses.
In Greece, New Year's Day is also the Festival of Saint Basil. Saint Basil was famous for his kindness, and Greek children leave their shoes by the fire on New Year's Day with the hope that he will come and fill the shoes with gifts. The tradition of using a baby to signify the new year was begun in Greece around 600 BC. It was their tradition at that time to celebrate their god of wine, Dionysus, by parading a baby in a basket, representing the annual rebirth of that god as the spirit of fertility. Early Egyptians also used a baby as a symbol of rebirth.
In Scotland, New Year is called Hogmanay, and in some villages barrels of tar are set alight and rolled through the streets. Thus, the old year is burned up and the new one allowed to enter.
Scottish people believe that the first person to enter your house in the New Year will bring good or bad luck, and it is very good luck if the visitor is a dark-haired man bringing a gift. This custom is called first-footing.

The song, Auld Lang Syne is sung at midnight on New Year's Eve, and this custom is now celebrated all over the world. "Auld Lang Syne," the traditional New Year's song, was written by a Scottish poet, Robert Burns, 200 years ago.

Sydney on New Years Eve is nearly always humid, with fine weather and many of us gather all around the foreshores of our beautiful harbour eat, drink, dance, sing and wait till fire works.

AULD LANG SYNE
 
 mostly written by Robert Burns
 
Should auld  acquaintance be forgot,
And never bright to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot
 And auld lang syne?
 
For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne,
We'll take a cup of kindness yet
For auld lang syne
 
And surely ye'll be your pint-stoup
And surely I'll be mine;
And we'll take a cup of o' kindness yet
For auld lang syne.
 
We twa run about the braes,
And pu'd the gowans fine;
but we wandered money a weary foot
Sin auld lang syne.
 
And there 's a hand, my trusty fiere,
And gie's a hand o' thine;
And we'll tak' a right gude-willie waught
For auld lang syne.

In the Middle Ages, Christians changed New Year's Day to December 25, the birth of Jesus. Then they changed it to March 25, a holiday called the Annunciation. In the sixteenth century, Pope Gregory XIII revised the Julian calendar, and the celebration of the new year was returned to January 1.

The Julian and Gregorian calendars are solar calendars. Some cultures have lunar calendars, however. A year in a lunar calendar is less than 365 days because the months are based on the phases of the moon. The Chinese use a lunar calendar. Their new year begins at the time of the first full moon (over the Far East) after the sun enters Aquarius-sometime between January 19 and February 21. The Chinese celebrate the holiday by exchanging gifts, having parades, and exploding firecrackers. One of twelve animals, such as a tiger, a rooster, or a dog, is associated with each new year.

Although the date for New Year's Day is not the same in every culture, it is always a time for celebration and for customs to ensure good luck in the coming year. In France, families gather and exchange gifts and greeting cards. Children often present their parents with homemade gifts to wish them Bonne Annee. In Italy, a piece of mistletoe is hung over the front door to bring good luck to the entire household. In Scotland, people bring delicious cakes and cookies to parties. It is believed that the first person to enter a house will receive good luck.  

In the United States, the New Year's celebrations that are familiar to  today were originated in the 1750s by the Dutch in New Amsterdam.

During the Middle Ages, the Church remained opposed to celebrating New Years. January 1 has been celebrated as a holiday by Western nations for only about the past 400 years.