NationStates

At five minutes to midnight on December the 31st, the President of the Central Committee makes a short televised speech to the nation on the VBC1 TV channel and Radio Vallermoore, whilst standing on a chair. At midnight he and Vallermoorians all over the country jump into the new year and hug and kiss and link arms and sing Auld Lang Syne, and fireworks are set off both at public displays and in back gardens and other such places. The parties often go on until 5:00AM and New Year's Day is a holiday-first as most Vallermoorians are tired and second, as many of them are drunk. As drunk driving that causes death or serious and permanent injuries can be a death penalty offence, it is considered unfair to make Vallermoorians risk death by hanging just to get to work.
On New Year's Eve, there is a certain tolerance of public drunkenness as long as it does not lead to fights or worse and no drunkards drive.

This year, because of COVID-19, some cities have partnered with CGI studios to arrange virtual fireworks, which will be broadcasted on TV and online just like usual. And because we have had an average of 0.2 cases per day from November, restaurants/bars/clubs are allowed to stay open throughout the night. People are advised not to take cars and use public transport instead, which will also run through the night.

New Lizhou wrote:This year, because of COVID-19, some cities have partnered with CGI studios to arrange virtual fireworks, which will be broadcasted on TV and online just like usual. And because we have had an average of 0.2 cases per day from November, restaurants/bars/clubs are allowed to stay open throughout the night. People are advised not to take cars and use public transport instead, which will also run through the night.

Which one?

Gregorian New Year's.
LSD and Marijuana are legal recreational drugs in the ILB.
People break the law and take smack crack and blow, but, ew.
Alcohol is legal in the ILB.

Gym membership is a popular Christmas tradition to ease into the New Year's Gym Up, where you start the new year at the gym, listening to your own music/entertainment on a personal device, or a hit music radio station's DJ's in that city or region of ILB playing 'workout' music to honour New Year's Resolutions.

The Chinese Community of the ILB successfully got The Luna New Year national holiday status in the ILB, now every year our citizens enjoy Chinese Culture Celebrations and learn more about Chinese Culture, while celebrating Luna New Year. Red envelopes have their own secure mail service to ensure everybody has a happy prosperous Luna New Year.

Both new years are celebrated with fireworks.

The week following Christmas, and New Years Eve/Day, are naturally seen as a period to review the outgoing year and plans for the future. Celebrations and traditions vary in politics and civil life.


On Christmas, the President relays The Christmas Address to the nation. The address chronicles domestic major events, accomplishments, shortcomings, and triumphs of the year. The address also establishes a broad theme and goal for the country to aim for in the next year. The Christmas Address is primarily apolitical and nonpartisan in its content, although it may approach and advise on broad political themes of the year in times of political crisis. The current Prime Minister gives their State of the Nation address on New Years Eve. This address has a similar structure to the former, but is focused specifically on Parliament, The Government, and policy. The State of the Nation may also discuss the economic/financial state and propose legislation and priorities for the upcoming year. This address is typically not made or expected on election years that involve a change of Government and/or Prime Minister. Mayors, political party chairs, business owners, and other community leaders sometimes have their own similar State of the Community addresses in the week following Christmas. Both a Christmas Address and a State of the Community were historically written, but are now visually and audibly recorded since the advent of broadcast media. For the sake of tradition however, transcripts are typically distributed before, during, or after broadcast.


New Years is a time to celebrate not just the coming of a new year, but the going of an old one. Communities often host Strawman Burns to commemorate a good-riddance to the departure of the year's bad times. Community members write their criticism of the year's happenings on a paper, which they then pin on a strawman. How precisely this is done varies between people and communities. Some people put one event at a time on a slip, pinning anywhere between one and handfuls of slips on the strawman. Others summarize their qualms on one long letter which they pin at the end of the year. Some pins are sealed for privacy, a ritual that is generally given great respect. Pins are generally unlabelled and expected to hold a sort of anonymity. Some communities put up their strawman toward the beginning of the year, letting it accumulate with papers. Others may only put up their strawman toward the end, making the day of pinning a sort of one-time event of its own. Pinned events on the strawman range from the lighthearted or petty to the sobering and widespread with humor and snark written everywhere in between. Pins are often seen as a sort of exercise in writing jabs and roasts. Common events that are pinned include breakups, failed goals, unexpected setbacks, the loss of loved ones, and simple bad days. It's not unusual for particularly dramatic pins to become an element of community gossip and laughter.

On New Years Eve, the community gathers to burn the strawman. Before the burning, the community typically reads out the unsealed entries and casually votes on which is the best (or worst) in tragic value, humor, and prevalence. From the highlighted pins is voted "The Most Honorable Dread," which is burned or destroyed first in the most theatrical means available to great fanfare. After this ceremonial Shred of the Dread, the rest of the strawman and its pins are burned in a massive bonfire to the cheers of onlookers. The remains and ashes are pulverized to a powder, which is ceremoniously scattered out at sea. The community head leads a song, prayer, or recital focused around how the year's misgivings are to be washed away at sea, leaving nothing but good wishes for next year. Burns are typical a festive affair up until the scattering, which is treated with a cheerful yet solemn reverence.


Aside from domestic practices, Cayucas celebrates the New Years with typical North American fanfare. Dressed-up parties, fireworks at the stroke of midnight, and a round or two of Auld Lang Syne with a glass of champagne.

The OSS uses a simplified calendar based off of Jupiters 12 year orbital cycle. Days are 25 hours, months are all 31 days, and a year is 350 days. "New Years" in OSS is a pretty small affair rarely considered anything worth celebrating (who cares about some Earther holiday?) Traditionally employers may offer a small "end of period bonus" and some people hold small parties. The military may hold a small parade. The real New Years analog for OSS is the Jovian New Year when Jupiter completes its orbit. This holiday comes once every 12 years and is celebrated with massive parades, parties, revelry, and a general relaxation of social rules and customs. It's also a National holiday and all non-essential personel are allowed to have the day off. Freighters and ship captains are superstitious about travelling during a Jovian New Year. Perhaps the most well known tradition occurs a the day after, when the OSS Grand Prix begins and professional space ship racers begin a roughly year long race around the Outer planets and back to Jupiter.

On new year's eve, there is a parade through the streets of New Gardenalia led by the prime minister. There are 12 floats representing the 12 months, each decorated according to the month it represents. They through out candy and treats for kids. After the parade, holiday markets are set up to sell stuff and memorabilia from the year past. At noon, scavenger hunts start; one in each province. Only kids may participate in them. The prize of these scavenger hunts is getting to go on TV with the PM and count down to the new year. Fundraisers are also present and it is tradition to give a number of villattes that is a multiple or factor of 365 to a charity. At 11:40 on December 31th, the PM goes on live TV with the winners of the scavenger hunts from all 14 provinces and they get to talk with the PM and spread holiday cheer until 11:58 when they count down to the new year. Parties are common and fireworks go off.

When covid-19 was not a concern:

New Years Eve is celebrated by a festival and parade in the capital of Barsa organized by the Jersha priests for the god Valeki, the god of wealth, wine, and fertility. The festival is a party to ask for good wealth, good health, and good crops for the upcoming year. The festival includes lots of wine drinking, which is considered an offering to Valeki. During the parade the priests wear the famous Horned Masks to channel the god and are believed to be possessed by his spirit, performing intense dances and usually collapsing from exhaustion. The parade occurs on just 1 day, New Years Eve, but the festival lasts until the day after New Years and includes dancing, music making, wine drinking, and games.

Due to covid-19 the government has banned the festival but the parade will still continue but will be broadcasted live on TV with a limited in-person audience.

Celebrating the New Year is not done in the sense of the traditional beginning of the New Year, as we have it in many other countries. It is a time for families to gather and strengthen ties which might otherwise be severed. The New Year was a chance to recharge after a long spell of the outgoing year.

Fortunately, there is no covid in Jabberwocky. We will celebrate as usual with marathon poetry readings while swilling mulled wine or honey mead.

TurtleShroom wrote:

TURTLESHROOM II wrote:TurtleShroom rings in the New Year with the usual countdown and classical American ball drop, but with a twist.

The head of state is expected to oversee and attend the annual New Years Eve festival and pull the lever that drops the giant peach, which, upon hitting the bottom, heralds the New Year. (Do not ask why we use a peach. The peach was a gift from a foreign nation as a sign of goodwill. We have nothing to do with peaches.)

The head of state is also expected to lead the countdown and sing "Auld Lang Syne" during the ceremony, and, overall, attend and provide an air of official ceremony to the festival. He is also expected not to look stupid or go party crazy. Lastly, he is expected, but not mandated, to say the first prayer of the New Year.

The peach coincides with another, larger "ball drop" ceremony at the heart of Jonesboro.

TURTLESHROOM II wrote:

TURTLESHROOM II wrote:Like they did every year, TurtleShroom's New Years Festivities were gathered, in the capital, around the famous Orthodox Chapel of Jones Found, which is the site of the first church of any kind in Jonesboro, erected in 1619 AD. The current Chapel, which is really a cathedral or ecclesiastical metropolis for the small TurtleShroomer Rite of the Orthodox Church, was built in 1799 AD after the original burnt down.

Its most distinctive feature was also its newest. The Chapel is large and cubed shaped on the outside, with four onion dome towers on making up each corner, separating its face. All of them were coated entirely in TurtleShroom-mined sapphires. What set it apart, though, was its central onion dome; covered in silver and gold leaf, the shaft tower leading to that dome was five times the height of the actual church and topped with a traditional Orthodox cross.

This dome was modified in 1991 AD so that the dome itself lowered down the shaft like a ball drop in a New Year festival. Though mostly for tourist matters, lowering it made it easy to polish, to clean, or to replace cracks.
Every year, Jonesboro was the center of the party and this Cathedral was the means to ring in the New Year.

At midnight in Jonesboro, the audience falls silent in order for the bells of the largest Baptist church in the country to peal as loud as the thunder. This is the signal to shout "HAPPY NEW YEAR".

TurtleShroomers party by swigging sweet iced tea, soda (Coca-Cola), and water all night long. They pack the casinoes, the amusement parks, the restaurants, and the churches and enjoy good clean fun. Families gather around the radio (or the television if they are lucky) or gather in worship.
Of course, there is no alcohol in TurtleShroomer parties, at least not legally.

Between about one and two o'clock in the morning, the Spiritual Advisor of TurtleShroom leads the nation in prayer, followed by the Kings of TurtleShroom that are Christian.

Most festivities end at 2:00 AM, especially in rural areas, because the farmers have to get up at dawn (or sooner) to do their jobs.

At around five o'clock in the evening (the time differs every year), March 19 (or 20), the Minister of Culture and Religion will deliver a speech announcing the official end of the winter season, officially starting a new set of seasons and declaring it a New Year, seasonally. Then around 18-26 hours later the same Minister will deliver another speech declaring the astronomical end of the winter season, declaring a New Year astronomically. But the New Year in total doesn't officially begin until a couple days later, when the first spring flowers bloom. Throughout those days many families have different sets of traditions for things that they do each day. Also, the first person in the nation to ever call in the official bloom of the first spring flowers in the nation wins a $50,000 Goram prize.

There are no new year celebrations in Gr8 Britn. Most people are still too drunk after Christmas to care about the new year.

Usually it is celebrated the same way as in most western countries: Radiatians get totally wrecked and wake up in bed with whichever stranger they happened to go home from the pub with. However as New Years is usually in the middle of winter (and winters are brutal in Radiatia), most celebrations are strictly indoor events.

More popular though is the traditional Radiatian New Year which is on March 31st/April 1st (with Radiatia reluctantly agreeing to start the official year on January 1st in order to fit with the rest of the world). Basically it's the same thing, but because it happens in spring while the winter thaw is under way, it's simultaneously an end of winter celebration and something where it's easier to have a big public outdoor event.