A New Year

Do people ever wonder, I wonder, about the deep and most profound question surrounding the beginning of a new year? Why is it on January 1st? Does nobody ever think to themselves, gosh but it's great to be having this fun party and getting to kiss some random girl because you should always kiss somebody right at midnight?... not that I do, I usually go to the bathroom to ring in the new year... but anyway.

Well, because I had already taken my History of Calendars back to the library (not joking), I had to make due with that other extremely accurate and trustworthy source for this little blog: Wikipedia (joking about the trustworthiness, but hey, it's just a blog, not a dissertation). Two major calendars have been used in the days of yore, the Julian and Gregorian, and both had year starting dates on different days. That's about all I'm going to say on that. When the Gregorian came out, it was cooler than sliced bread, I think. We got new names for our months and everybody was happier than a horse on a skating rink. The origin for the name of January came from Janus who was the Roman god of gates or doorways, and beginnings and endings. I'm pretty sure that's the only reason we picked January and the only reason we picked January 1 was because nobody starts counting with zero.

The Julian calendar liked to start on January 1 as well, but other peoples of the world were somewhat belligerent to the people of the Calendaric Julianus faith and decided to pick their own starting dates, March 25th, Easter, December 25th, September 1st to name a few. Personally, I don't know what they were thinking either. History critical dates as beginning of the year... maybe it made it easier to remember.

From all my Wikipedia-ing (I'm so embarrassed), I have discovered no connection between perhaps....oh I don't know, the orientation of our planet in the solar system or galaxy! Wouldn't that have been the most obvious point to start a new year? Is that too anally scientific of me? The Gregorian calendar doesn't even land the new year on an equinox for cryin' out loud! And with the way the Earth is slowing down, it'll only be a couple thousand years (or more) until it doesn't matter a hill of beans how long a year is or where it'll land.

Well, that's my quick little "Let's make my friends think about that for at least 5 minutes" dealy-o. I trust you're thoroughly outraged by now at the manipulation with which we're required to celebrate the new year. Personally, I'm switching to March 20th. I'll still see you on Dec 31st to maintain my image with the secret government division of compliance. ;)