I had assumed, as many I have talked to, that New Years has been a holiday for time immemorial. However, we were wrong! The celebration of the dawn of a new year is relatively new, only being celebrated similarly to how we do today towards the end of the 19th-century. This makes sense when you remember few were able to afford to have clocks in their homes even though most were made nearby in Connecticut (think Waterbury and Seth Thomas). Most staples of New Years didn’t arrive until recently. The first Pasadena Rose Parade was in 1890, with the first Time Square Ball Drop being on New Years Eve 1907.
I had assumed the Pilgrims disembarking from the Mayflower into the “New World” in the winter of 1620 would be eager to revel in the coming of the new year. However, that was not how our ancestors operated. Predominant days of celebration would be harvest festivals and religious holidays, not the changing of the calendar year from 1620 to 1621. This is also remiss of the fact the early settlers were generally more concerned with survival than celebrating arbitrary dating. Fun fact: the Pilgrims, being of a sect of Protestantism, followed the Julian calendar and were thus 10 days behind the Gregorian calendar we follow today.
The winter of 1620-1621 was brutal and did not warrant much celebration. The first Thanksgiving is generally considered the have occurred the first autumn after the pilgrims landed, so about a year later. Of the 102 passengers who left Plymouth, England and founded the Plymouth Colony, 45 would die in the winter. This is from a lack of food and shelter and a lack of knowledge of the area. They are quite lucky the colony did not end up the same Jamestown did a decade prior. This is all to say, starting a colony, one dependent on the cultivation of crops, is not advised in the middle of December.
I was hoping to learn of the colonists stepping off the boat, harvesting their hops and barley, having a bonfire, and dancing. Certainly not the traditional pilgrim way, but I had at least hoped for something. That was not the case, nor would it be for nearly 250 years. Many, if not most native groups in the Americas did have celebrations for the Winter Solstice. These which would run what could be called the “holiday season.” So, while the colonizers were dying off, there was some celebrating going on throughout the continent. Happy New Years!
By Sam Bishop