New Years Festivities

Everyone celebrates New Years differently, from attending parties with fireworks and balloons to staying in with loved ones counting down the new year. New Years in La Jolla is celebrated with fancy dinners, drinks, and balls featuring expensive suits and glamorous dresses. Families have the option of traveling to the beach to listen to live music. Most hotels have all-you -can-eat buffets and drinks. When asked how she celebrates New Year’s, freshman Sarah Robbins said that she travels to visit family where they eat and drink and “blast Ariana Grande Jingle Bells  (a popular Christmas song) and that’s it.”

New Years can have many different meanings: a fresh start, a time to reflect, or an opportunity to create  new changes. It gives people the excuse they need to recommit to bettering themselves and finding the parts of their lives that aren’t working and making the necessary shifts. Resolutions are a large part of this holiday, making promises to yourself and others. and even though you can technically make resolutions at any point you want, somehow, making it on new years makes it feel more official and many people spend days coming up with the perfect one, one that they can carry on for the whole year. Some people make New Year’s wishes -things they want or are looking forward to in the new year. 

Everyone has different traditions, in the U.S some make a toast or kiss right at midnight, wear white, light sparklers. In Spain they eat grapes for good luck, in Brazil they throw white flowers in the ocean as a way to receive blessings, in Turkey they sprinkle sand on their doorstep. Instead of throwing house parties or going out, New Years in Chile is held in cemeteries where people can go visit their dead loved ones while they hold mass. To let out any pent up aggression going into the next year, tradition in Denmark is to throw glass plates at your neighbor’s door. All of these efforts occur in the hope that the world will see these gestures as a means to bring good fortune in the coming year. They, like many others, are making a wish. 

Freshman Justin Woods said, “New Years isn’t the celebration of a new year, it is a celebration that you survived the past year, especially if it was 2020.”