Happy New Year! Here we are ready to start through the days of the gift of a new year. Seems not so long ago we were switching over to a new century at 2000 with worries that was going to somehow stop the country because all the computers would have headaches changing 1999 to 2000. We survived that slide into 2000 with hardly a notice. And now here we are at 2023.
How did you celebrate a new year coming your way? Were you out on the town last night and blowing noisemakers and singing “Auld Lang Syne” at midnight? Or were you snug in bed sleeping through the midnight hour with trust that a new year could dawn without you awake to make sure it showed up?
I have seen plenty of New Years come in but never at the parties that get attention in the news. No Times Square celebrating. For many years, I attended Watch Night Services at churches that had Gospel Singings. My husband has been singing in Gospel quartets for over 50 years and on the majority of the New Year’s Days in those years, his group would be singing at one of those Watch Night Services. Singing out the old year and in the new one with songs about the Lord isn’t a bad way to get a new year started.
This year they weren’t singing. The grandkids weren’t visiting as they did when they were younger and their parents were out celebrating their mother’s birthday which is on New Year’s Eve. I’ve watched the Times Square ball drop on television with them a few times. But this year was a quiet time at home. I did hear the clock strike twelve right before I went to sleep.
Have you ever wondered when people started celebrating on New Year’s Eve as they awaited the coming of a new year? You might be surprised to know that started thousands of years ago. The earliest recorded festivities in honor of a new year’s arrival date back some 4,000 years to ancient Babylon. For the Babylonians, the first new moon following the vernal equinox—the day in late March with an equal amount of sunlight and darkness—heralded the start of a new year.
Calendars were changed several times through the centuries until 46 B.C. when the emperor Julius Caesar introduced the Julian calendar which is almost the same as the modern Gregorian calendar that is most used today. He chose January 1 as the first day of the year, partly to honor the month’s namesake: Janus, the Roman god of beginnings, whose two faces allowed him to look back into the past and forward into the future. For centuries Christian leaders chose different dates, usually a date of religious significance, to be the beginning of a new year, but in 1582, Pope Gregory XIII reestablished January 1 as New Year’s Day.
And so, today we start off on a New Year. Maybe you made some New Year’s Resolutions. Our preacher asked us today if we’d made any resolutions, and a sweet little girl who is maybe 8 or 9 said her resolution was to get along better with her big brother. We loved that. I haven’t made any New Year’s resolutions for years, but as I was thinking about this post tonight and looking for a picture to go with it, I decided to resolve to remember to look for the beauty in the world around me. That’s why you have the winter pond up top and this frost flower here.
Do you have a resolution or a goal for the New Year?
End of Year Giveaway Winners
Oh, and before I go, here are the winners of my End of the Year Book Giveaway. I sent the three of them messages this afternoon and have already heard back from them with their book picks. Caryl of Texas chose An Appalachian Summer for her prize. Marlene of Arkansas said she had a hard time choosing but decided on Scent of Lilacs. Susan of South Carolina is ready to ride up into the Appalachian Mountains with Tansy, my bookwoman, and read Along a Storied Trail.
Thank you all for making this giveaway so much fun with your comments. If you’re curious which quote from the last post got the most interest, it was These Healing Hills with 14 followed by An Appalachian Summer with 10. But the others all got some votes too. Thanks for sharing your thoughts about why the quotes grabbed your interest. You all are the best.
Comments 14
I was asleep when it turned to the New Year, but I did wake up a few minutes after 12:00 to hear a couple of distance booms around our neighborhood from fireworks. I haven’t made any new resolutions for the year, just hope our family can stay in good health and be safe. I’m looking forward to seeing some of nature’s beauty in the spring time and don’t mind if it comes as quick as it can.
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No fireworks this year in our neighborhood, Connie. I was expecting some that would have Frankie nervous, but I guess everybody decided to let the year come in peacefully around here.
I don’t have any resolutions either. Some goals such as finishing a new book by my spring deadline. Maybe losing a few pounds but that means I have to resolve not to give in to my sweet tooth so easily. Sigh. Love those sweets. I too wish for a happy and healthy year for my family and for yours too. What a blessing that is for our families.
I love the frost flowers and your photo really shows one at its prime. Our dog Scout loves to eat them, so they disappear before I could capture such a nice photo of one. I don’t remember ever seeing those up north, but here in KY what a beautiful alluring sight down low among the weeds.
Thanks for starting us off on looking for the blessings in ’23!
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This was a picture from a few years ago, Amy. Some winters or falls, the frost flowers are prettier than others. As best I remember, that was a banner year for them and I took a lot of pictures with patient Oscar my walking companion. Frankie is not as patient and like your Scout is apt to step on them. He doesn’t eat them though. They are very fragile. I’ve tried picking them up but they usually crumble. They are lovely, but you have to have the right kind of weed for them to “flower.”
Congratulations to the winners! And Happy New Year to all. I stopped making resolutions a long time ago but I like yours, Ann. There is so much beauty in this world God has made.
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The only resolution I have been good at keeping is that one to make no resolutions, Lee. LOL The challenge will be to see the beauty on gray and dreary days as well as those sunlit ones.
I grew up going to watch night services and have great memories of singing, fellowship and then gathering around the altars spending time praying in the new year. I think that’s a great way to begin the new year. My church gathers at 11:30 p.m. to share what the Lord has laid on our hearts and then we pray the new year in. I’m thankful for this…but praying that more will choose to pray about this coming year and especially as I Timothy 2: 1-4 instructs us to do…because it is the Body of Christ that needs to be the vessels to carry the Light into the darkness as Isaiah 60 talks about.
May the Lord bless each one in just the way that He knows is needed in the coming year. 🙂🙏
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Let our light shine. Indeed, Connie, that is the best attitude to carry into the New Year. We need to show compassion, kindness and love while shining those lights.
Praying in the New Year is a great way to end one year and start another. May we all keep pryaing for our country and people everywhere. Prayer is powerful and most of us don’t plug into that power often enough in our Christian walk.
I’d never heard about or seen a “frost flower” before seeing your post and the amazing photo you included! Thank you for sharing the beauty in God’s world that you see around you — and Happy New Year to you and yours!
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You can check them out on the internet, Roberta, and find more pictures. Only certain plants produce the necessary moisture that freezes to make the lovely fragile ice flowers. I’ve taken dozens of pictures of the ones I see. Some years the conditions are better for them than in others. This year wasn’t so good, perhaps because we had that dry spell. This picture is from a few years ago.
My goal for the new year is to keep my eyes on Jesus.
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A blessed and worthy goal, Birdie. May your journey through 2023 be full of blessing and joy.
Happy New year to you, your family and all your readers ,Ann
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Thank you, Lisa, and I wish the same back to you and your family. May joy be part of your life every day.