The history of New Year’s Day is a complicated and most interesting one. The short version of it all goes essentially as follows: In ancient Rome, as the calendar was being formed and reformed, it was decided that a month should be named after the Roman God Janus who represented transitions, doors, gates, and beginnings. This month came to be known as January. Given the God that it represented, the first day of the month became the start of the new year, and was a day of festivities in celebration of new beginnings...