New Year's Day Holiday across the globe
Who is off on New Year's Eve in 2013?
Bulgaria
Thailand
Latvia
Philippines
New Year's Day is the first day of the year, in the Gregorian calendar, and falls exactly one week after the Christmas Day of the previous year.
New Year's Day is a public holiday in all countries that observe the Gregorian calendar, with the exception of Israel. Some countries may also have January 2nd as an additional New Year holiday.
Countries who still use the Julian Calendar observe New Year's Day on January 14th.
It is traditionally celebrated with firework displays across the globe at 0:00 in the local time zones.
New Year's Day was originally observed on March 15th in the old Roman Calendar.
It was fixed at January 1st in 153 BCE, when the two Roman consuls, after whom - in the Roman calendar - years were named and numbered, began to be chosen on that date, for military reasons.
During the Middle Ages, a number of different Christian feast dates were used to mark the New Year, though calendars often continued to display the months in columns running from January to December in the Roman fashion.
Most countries in Western Europe had officially adopted January 1st as New Year's Day even before they adopted the Gregorian calendar. This was called Circumcision Style, because it was the date of the 'Feast of the Circumcision', which occured on the eighth day after Christmas Day, and is said to have been the day when Christ was circumcised.
New Year's eve is also the time to make New Year's resolutions, which one hopes to fulfill or abide by in the coming Year; such as stop smoking or drinking alcohol, or lose weight or get physically fit.