Janus, appropriately the Roman god of beginnings and the guardian of doors and entrances, was always depicted with two faces, one on the front of his head and one on the back. Thus he could look backward and forward at the same time. On the eve of a New Year, the Romans imagined Janus looking back at the old year and forward to the new. The Romans began a tradition of exchanging gifts on New Year’s Eve by giving one another branches from sacred trees for good fortune (they didn’t have the expense of the Christmas season back then). Later, nuts or coins imprinted with the god Janus became more common New Year’s gifts.
When in Rome
The New Year has not always begun on 1 January, and it doesn’t begin on that date everywhere today. The Romans traditionally observed the New Year on 25 March, but various emperors continually tampered with their calendar so that the calendar soon became out of synchronization with the sun. In order to set the calendar right, Julius Caesar, in 46 BC, established what has come to be known as the Julian calendar, with 1 January as the first day of the New Year. In order to synchro-

nize his calendar with the sun, Caesar had to let the previous year drag on for 445 days.
Middle ages
In the Middle Ages, Christians changed New Year’s Day to 25 December, the birth of Jesus. Then they changed it to 25 March, a holiday called the Annunciation. In the sixteenth century, Pope Gregory XIII revised the Julian calendar, dropping ten days to bring the calendar back into synchronization with the seasons and omitting 3 leap days every four hundred years. With the Gregorian calendar, the celebration of the New Year returned to 1 January.
Non-Catholic countries, not being subject to the decrees of the Pope, initially rejected or ignored the reform altogether, although most eventually adopted it. Britain and its colonies adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1752 by which time it was necessary to correct by 11 days, causing riots in Britain as people believed their lives had been shortened. Greece only adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1923.
A time and a place for everything
The Julian and Gregorian calendars are solar calendars. Some cultures, such as the Chinese, have lunar calendars. A year in a

lunar calendar is less than 365 days be-cause the months are based on the phas-es of the moon. The Chinese New Year begins at the time of the first full moon (over the Far East) after the sun enters Aquarius- sometime between 19 January and 21 February.
Today New Year begins on 1 January for

cultures that use the Gregorian calendar. Although the date for New Year’s Day is not the same in every culture, it is always a time for celebration and to make resolutions for the coming year. The beginning of a New Year is also the ideal time to review your financial affairs and get them in order, and so to help you, here are 6 new year resolutions for 2018.