Thai people admit that there are twelve months for one Year. Thai people start counting the first lunar month, the second one and the third one respectively until to the twelfth lunar month. In the past, Thai regarded April as their New Year's Day, and this month is the month of Songkran Festival or water splashing Festival, but now Thai people's New Year's Day is January 1, according to the international belief.
Thais believe that New Year's Day will bring back only the good thing to their lives or get a better life. Therefore, when New Year's Day approaches, Thais like to make merit by giving alms, giving blessings to their friends as well as relatives, asking blessing from the elderly and celebrating New Year's Day in some places.
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.
The month was named Janus after the name of the Roman god of doors and gates. Janus had two faces, one facing forward and one looking back, a fitting name for the month at the start of the year.
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.
It wasn't until 1582 when the Roman Catholic Church officially adopted 1 January as the New Year.
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.