By Tim Sanders

To prove that I don’t just toss these columns together, here is what I’ve learned after extensive research into New Year’s traditions the world over:

Ancient Babylonians celebrated New Year’s Day as early as 2000 BC. It was celebrated on the first day of Spring, when the full moon appeared after the vernal equinox. The Babylonians, who lived in the middle of what is present-day Iraq, are credited with starting the tradition of making New Year’s resolutions. The most common Babylonian resolutions were to use less fertilizer in their hanging gardens, throw larger rocks at infidels, and keep grandfather away from the goats.

In 600 BC the Greeks celebrated the new year by parading babies around in baskets. This was in honor of their god of wine and babies in baskets, Dionysus. There is no information as to whether the babies enjoyed the festivities, or the wine, but to this day the new year is symbolized by a cherubic, scantily clad baby, and the old year is symbolized by Michael Douglas. Sorry, I mean Father Time.

The Romans celebrated the new year on the 1st of March until the senate started messing around with the calendar. Most of this was done so that emperors like Julius Caesar, Augustus Caesar, and Septemberus Caesar could have their very own special months. According to the Julian calendar, the new year would be celebrated on January 1, to provide the senate a much needed winter recess. This confused the average Roman, who felt he was losing three months’ salary, and it eventually caused an economic panic which led to the fall of Rome.

In 1582, Pope Gregory the Compulsive approved a new calendar which, unlike the Julian calendar, would not lose a month every 400 years, thus further tilting the earth on its axis and causing serious problems with something called "leap centuries." He decreed that the date immediately following October 4, 1582 would be October 15. The ten days in between those dates were donated to the Ethiopians, who had lost nine days and seven hours out of their calendar the year before to locusts. Due undoubtedly to some oversight, the Gregorian calendar allowed the civilized world to continue celebrating New Year’s Day on January 1.

Wassail and eggnog are both integral parts of the traditional New Year’s celebration. Wassail is an old English drink, which is made by squeezing the juice from a ripe, tasty wass into a mug and adding ale. Eggnog, on the other hand, is a drink made by pouring only the nog part of an egg into a mug and adding rum. Both are commonly used during the New Year’s celebration to spread good cheer and get people drunk so that they will do things they’ll regret years later. This foolishness is honored in the famous holiday song, "Here we come an eggnogging among the leaves so–HIC–green."

At one time people believed that the first visitor on New Year’s day would bring either good or bad luck for the remainder of the year, depending on whether the visitor was a tall, dark-haired man bearing gifts, a tall, dark-haired man bearing a warrant, or a short, dark-haired, rodent baring his teeth.

The New Year’s Day Tournament of Roses Parade dates from 1890, when members of Pasadena’s Valley Hunt Club decorated their carriages with flowers and chubby Victorian matrons to celebrate the ripening of the orange crop in California. Why it wasn’t called the Tournament of Oranges Parade is still a mystery. In 1902 the first Rose Bowl game was played as part of the Tournament of Roses, and in a contest which was very close until several seconds into the first quarter, the University of Michigan beat Stanford 49-0. The following year, because of constant irritating references to the Stanford team as "the little old ladies from 350 miles north of Pasadena," the football game was replaced by (seriously) Roman chariot races. In 1916, after several critical chariot injuries due to lack of roll bars, air bags, safety glasses and "horse-methane" masks, football was reinstalled as the sports centerpiece of the festival.

The Dutch believe that eating donuts, called Olie Bollens, will bring good luck in the new year. That is because donuts are circular, and symbolize roundness, which is one of Holland’s very favorite shapes, along with squareness and oblongness.

The Poles and the Germans believe that eating a herring at the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve will bring good luck–unless there are bones. The Spanish eat twelve grapes at midnight, to symbolize the number of grapes in a dozen. Icelanders boil their shoes. It keeps their feet warm.

In the American South, people traditionally eat black eyed peas on New Year’s Eve for good luck in the following year. In "Hoppin’ John," the most popular recipe, the peas are cooked with salt pork, ham, onions, garlic, red peppers, rice, and whatever else is handy. One legend has it that the dish was created by a 19th Century chef at the Atlanta Restless Legs Institute, and was also called "Lurchin’ Larry," "Twitchin’ Tom," and "Waltzin’ Meemaw."

"Auld Lang Syne" is always sung at midnight on New Year’s Eve. Some people believe that "auld lang syne" refers to synes which are both auld and lang, while others believe it has something to do with gastric juices and liver bile. No one really knows. It was written in the 1700s by the beloved Scottish poet, Guy Lombardo. He was drunk at the time.

Speaking of the Scots, they celebrate Hogmanay every New Year’s Eve. Hundreds of thousands of Scots pack the streets of Glasgow and Edinburgh for Hogmanay, where they alternately drink whiskey, kiss their true love, toss the caber, drink whiskey, kiss their true love, toss the caber, drink more whiskey, kiss the caber, toss their true love, and when they finally fall over, sneak a wee peek up the nearest kilt. The word "Hogmanay" comes either from the Gaelic "oge maidne"(new morning), the Anglo-Saxon "haleg monath" (holy month), or the Elizabethan "hognanny" (woman who babysits swine).

Dropping the 1,000 lb. Illuminated Waterford Crystal ball from atop the flagpole at No. 1 Times Square at exactly 11:59 EST on New Year’s Eve is a time-honored American tradition. Usually half a million inebriated revelers show up to watch the ball’s 60-second descent, and count backward from sixty until they finally shout "FIVE, FOUR, EIGHT, TWO, ONE" and then lay a passionate kiss on a homeless person whom they mistake for their spouse. In rural America, crowds often gather at the local high school, where a basketball is dropped from the gymnasium roof a split-second before midnight, and celebrants all shout "ONE!" Then they sing what little they know of "Auld Lang Syne," toss rolls of toilet paper into the trees, finish their gallon of high octane nog, kiss their cousins, go home and wassail into the commode.

I hope this will put things into perspective, and allow you to feel that you are indeed part of a centuries old tradition when you do all of those really stupid things this New Year’s Eve that you resolved last year never to do again..