🗓️ When Does the Year Start? A Global Adventure Through Time

Every year on December 31, people in many countries gather to celebrate the New Year with fireworks 🎆, cheers 🎉, and countdowns: “10, 9, 8… Happy New Year!” 🕛✨ But did you know that not everyone celebrates the New Year on this date? And long ago, there wasn’t even one single calendar everyone followed!

Each culture had its own way of measuring time, and the New Year could fall in spring 🌸, summer 🌞, or even autumn 🍂. The way people created calendars and marked the year tells us more about their lives, their connection to the natural world, and their beliefs. Now you associate different months from our callendar with different celebrations. Summer for people living in the Northern Hemisphere is associated with the months June July and Augus and the the summer break. But if we go on a journey back in time we will discover many different callendar stories and traditions.

About 5,000 years ago, in the land of pyramids and golden sands 🏜️⛩️, the people of ancient Egypt depended on the mighty Nile River 🌊 for their survival. Every year, the Nile would flood, leaving behind rich, dark soil perfect for growing crops 🌾. But the Egyptians noticed something fascinating—the floods weren’t random. They happened like clockwork, every year at the same time, almost as if the river followed a secret calendar.

As they watched the sky 🌌, they found a clue: a bright star. Just before sunrise, when the star appeared in the sky, they knew the Nile was about to flood. This wasn’t just a lucky guess—it happened year after year, around the same time. This predictable pattern helped them create one of the first calendars! Their New Year was tied to this event, celebrating nature’s way of saying, “Let’s start the year with abundance!” So ancient Egyptians celebrated their New Year in mid-July when this star appeared in the sky.

About 4,000 years ago, in a place between the two rivers—the Tigris and Euphrates 🏛️—the Babylonians celebrated their New Year during the spring equinox 🌸. Do you know when the spring equinox happens? It’s the moment when day and night are equal in length—how perfect to start a New Year! Their festival lasted 11 days and was full of feasts, parades, and ceremonies to honor the gods and ask for a bountiful harvest 🌾. To the Babylonians, spring was the perfect time to begin the year. It was a season of renewal—flowers blooming, animals waking up from hibernation, and the earth coming alive again 🌸🌱.

And now let’s sail across the Mediterranean Sea 🌊 to visit another civilization: the Greeks! 🌊, About 3,000 years ago, in ancient Greece 🇬🇷, people celebrated their New Year during late July or early August 🌞. They waited for the first New Moon 🌑 after the summer solstice to mark the beginning of the year. This time of year for them symbolized balance and renewal 🌿, families gathered together to celebrate 🍇 with feasts, joyful music 🎶much like we celebrate today. The only difference was that they honored their gods, especially Zeus, the king of the gods ⚡, and Apollo, the god of the sun and music 🌞🎵. They prayed for blessings of health, happiness, and prosperity for the year ahead 🌟.The Greeks didn’t have a calendar like ours today. Instead, they followed the lunar calendar, based on the cycles of the moon 🌙. Their months didn’t have fixed lengths; instead, a new month began with the New Moon 🌑, making their calendar beautifully tied to the rhythm of the natural world.

The Greeks weren’t the only ones creating calendars to mark important times of the year! Around the same time, 2, 000 years ago their neighbors across the Mediterranean—the Romans 🇮🇹—were also busy organizing their lives and festivals. The Romans admired many things about Greek culture, like their gods, art, and ideas about time.

But the Roman calendar started out as a bit of a mess! It had only 10 months and 304 days, and the seasons didn’t match the months at all. Imagine celebrating a spring festival when it still felt like winter ❄️! That’s when a famous Roman leader, Julius Caesar, decided it was time to fix things once and for all 🛠️.He created a brand-new calendar and, naturally, named it after himself—the Julian calendar. To make things even better, he declared that January 1 would mark the start of the New Year 🎉 The Romans thought this made sense because January was named after Janus, the god of beginnings 🛡️Janus had two faces—one looking back at the old year 🕰️ and the other looking forward to the new 🌟 That makes sense, doesn’t it? 🎭🏛️

For a long time, everything seemed fine. But about 500 years ago, people started noticing a big problem!The Julian Calendar created by Julius Caesar worked well for a long time, and people all over the Roman Empire used it 🏛️. But there was one tiny problem—it wasn’t perfectly accurate, which caused the seasons to slowly drift out of place. Imagine celebrating Autumn festival with blooming flowers instead of good harvest. 🌸People were confused—should they trust the weather or the calendar? 🌷❓

Back then, not many people could read 📚 or write ✏️. Schools weren’t like they are today, and most people learned skills from each other, not in classrooms. But there was one man from Italy named Gregory, who was given the title Pope. Did you know the word “Pope”comes from the Latin word papa, which means “father”? The pope is like the “head teacher” or “principal” of all the churches 🛐.But how is he connected to our calendar story? Well, Gregory wasn’t just someone who could read and write—he loved solving puzzles and helping people. And the broken Julian Calendar was the biggest puzzle of all back then 🧩!

Gregory gathered a team of the smartest people he could find—astronomers who studied the stars 🌌, mathematicians who loved numbers 🔢, and deep thinkers who loved solving big problems 🌟. Together, they worked hard to figure out how to fix the calendar 🛠️. But there was one thing they didn’t need to change—the names of the months! These names had been around since the time of the Romans and were already familiar to many people. Gregory thought, “Why change something that’s working just fine?” 😄 After much effort, they created a new calendar, which they named the Gregorian Calendar 👏🏻 Gre 👏🏻 go 👏🏻 rian 👏🏻 (of course, after Gregory himself 😉).

Slowly, more and more countries began using his calendar 🗓️, and it became the one most of us use today.🌟And you may think this is the end of the story, but not every country celebrates the New Year on January 1, even today!🎉

I wonder..🌸❓Which countries does not celebrate New Year on 31 st of December? And why do you think they follow a different calendar? Could their seasons or traditions play a part?

Or you would like to explore the material Months of the Year on the history shelf to discover more about the months and where their names are derived!

With Montessori joy,

Vanina 😊