New Year & Christmas 2014

Christmas and New Year

Festivals are a mix of religious and traditional celebrations. In other words, festivals can also be considered as an occasion of meeting and gathering of people which includes family and friends. There are many festivals that are been celebrated in the world. Each religion in the world celebrates festivals all the months and every year as per

their customs and traditions. Likewise, Christmas is a religious festival of Christianity that is grandly celebrated in western countries rather than in India or any other non-Christian countries.

Christmas is a scared festival which is celebrated as the birth anniversary of Jesus Christ. This celebration of birthday will be held for 12 days and on 12th night the festival is ended. It is believed that, on night of christmas eve, Santa Claus will bring gifts to the homes of the good children. Santa Claus is also known as Saint Nicholas and is described as joyous white-breaded man wearing spectacles, red coat, black belt and comes in the cart of reindeer with having bag full of gifts of the children. It is also said that Santa lives in north pole with magic elves and flying reindeer.

Some also say, Santa makes list of the children who are naughty and kind hearted. Other than, Santa Claus Christmas is also well-known for the Christmas tree. Christmas tree will be decorated with lightings, candy and gifts. The gifts will be kept in tree with names written and some believe that the gifts from Santa Claus will be kept in tree at midnight. There were will be parties and get together will be organized on 12 days of Christmas. Every year nearly 30-35 million real Christmas trees are sold in United States. Growing this tree takes for about 15 years and there are 21,000 Christmas tree growers in United States alone.

New Year is celebrated as end of the year and the eve starts on last day of December and ends on 1st day of next year January. New Year can be dated back to some 4000 years to ancient Babylon civilization. In general, New Year is celebrated according to the Gregorian calendar and Julian calender. There are many religious calenders which celebrates new year on different day as per their mythological calculations.

The most iconic tradition of celebration of New Year in United States is dropping huge giant ball on the midnight of December 31st in New York’s Times Square. To see this iconic moment, since 1907 millions of people around the world have been visiting the New York city. This sphere patterned giant ball is made of 700 pound iron and features 12 feet in diameter, weighing in at nearly 12,000 pounds.

In United Kingdom (UK), new year is celebrated in a different manner. At Palace of Westminster in London, the chimes of Big Ben, the bell inside the clock tower are broadcast to mark the start of the New Year. In Scotland, celebration of new year begins with ‘Auld Lang Syne’ at midnight. In addition, as a part of celebration of new year, parties will be organized and people exchange the joy of year end with burning crackers, hosting a meal or snack, cutting cake, dancing and singing song.