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Article: Road Trip: New Year's Maine
- Article from:
- Sun-Journal Lewiston, Me.
- Article date:
- December 28, 2008
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 2008 Sun-Journal Lewiston, Me. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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New Year's Day is the oldest holiday in the world. It was first
celebrated in Babylon about 4,000 years ago. The new year
celebration once lasted 11 days. It was celebrated during March in
the Early Roman calendar, and on Jan. 1 in the Julian calendar and
our modern day calendar.
During the Middle Ages, new year's celebrations were forbidden as
they were considered pagan. It was also called the Feast of Christ's
circumcision, since his birth was listed as Dec. 25 and Jan. 1 was
the eighth day after his birth, when circumcision was ordinarily
performed. So even though the church condemned pagan practices, it
eventually adopted its own Christian new year's festivities.
Most of us have, at some ...