In the Gregorian calendar, New Year's Eve, the last day of the year, is on December 31. In many countries, New Year's Eve is celebrated at evening social gatherings, where many people dance, eat, drink alcoholic beverages, and watch or light fireworks to mark the new year. Some people attend a watchnight service. The celebrations generally go on past midnight into January 1 (New Year's Day).
New Year traditions and celebrations in Canada vary regionally. New Year's Eve (also called New Year's Eve Day or Veille du Jour de l'An in French) is generally a social holiday. In many cities there are large celebrations which may feature concerts, late-night partying, sporting events, and fireworks, with free public transit service during peak party times in most major cities. In some areas, such as in rural Quebec, people ice fish and drink alcoholic beverages with their friends until the early hours of January 1.
From 1956 to 1976, Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians serenaded Canada on the CBC, via a feed from CBS, from the ballroom of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel on Park Avenue in New York City. After Lombardo's death in 1977, the Royal Canadians continued on CBC and CBS until 1978. The song Auld Lang Syne is still a popular song to sing at midnight on New Year's Eve, with the Lombardo version being the standard.
Eve (Hebrew: חַוָּה, Ḥawwāh in Classical Hebrew, Khavah in Modern Israeli Hebrew, Arabic: حواء, Syriac: ܚܘܐ ) was, according to the creation myth of Abrahamic religions, the first woman created by God, in the Genesis creation narrative.
In the Bible, Eve (Hebrew: חַוָּה, Ḥawwāh; Arabic: حواء, Hawwa'; Ge'ez: ሕይዋን Hiywan; "living one" or "source of life", related to ḥāyâ, "to live"; ultimately from the Semitic root ḥyw; Greek: Εὕα, heúā) is Adam's wife. Her name occurs only four times; the first being Genesis 3:20: "And Adam called his wife's name Ḥawwāh; because she was the mother of all living" (a title previously held by the Babylonian creatrix Tiamat). In Vulgate she appears as "Hava" in the Old Testament, but "Eva" in the New Testament. The name may actually be derived from that of the Hurrian Goddess Kheba, who was shown in the Amarna Letters to be worshipped in Jerusalem during the Late Bronze Age. It has been suggested that the name Kheba may derive from Kubau, a woman who reigned as the first king of the Third Dynasty of Kish Another name of Asherah in the first millennium BCE was Chawat, Hawwah in Aramaic, (Eve in English).
New Year is the time at which a new calendar year begins and the calendar's year count is incremented. In many cultures, the event is celebrated in some manner. The New Year of the Gregorian calendar, today in worldwide use, falls on 1 January, as was the case with the Roman calendar. There are numerous calendars that remain in regional use that calculate the New Year differently.
The order of months in the Roman calendar was January to December since King Numa Pompilius in about 700 BC, according to Plutarch and Macrobius. According to Catholic tradition, 1 January is the day of the circumcision of Jesus (on the eighth day from his birth), when the name of Jesus was given to him (Luke 2:21).
It was only relatively recently that 1 January again became the first day of the year in Western culture. Until 1751 in England and Wales (and all British dominions) the new year started on 25 March – Lady Day, one of the four quarter days (the change to 1 January took place in 1600 in Scotland). Since then, 1 January has been the first day of the year. During the Middle Ages several other days were variously taken as the beginning of the calendar year (1 March, 25 March, Easter, 1 September, 25 December).[citation needed][where?] In many countries, such as the Czech Republic, Italy and the UK, 1 January is a national holiday.
Lea Michele Sarfati (born August 29, 1986), known professionally as Lea Michele, is an American actress and singer. Michele began working professionally as a child actress on Broadway in productions such as Ragtime and Les Misérables. She originated the role of Wendla in the musical Spring Awakening and currently plays Rachel Berry in the Fox television series Glee and made her film debut in New Year's Eve starring alongside Ashton Kutcher. Michele performs in the soprano range.
Michele was born in the Bronx, New York City. She is the only daughter of Edith, a nurse, and Marc Sarfati, a delicatessen owner. Her mother is Italian American and Roman Catholic, while her father is a Spanish Sephardic Jew. Michele was raised Catholic, and has stated that her father "gladly" attends church with her and her mother. She grew up in Tenafly, New Jersey. She attended Rockland Country Day School for elementary school in New York and then Tenafly High School. Michele was home schooled one year while working in Toronto, Ontario on Ragtime. She attended Stagedoor Manor in the Catskills, a center for performing arts training. She was then later accepted to the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, but opted instead to continue working professionally on the stage.
Zooey Claire Deschanel ( /ˈzoʊ.iː deɪʃəˈnɛl/ ZOH-ee day-shə-NEL; born January 17, 1980) is an American actress, musician and singer-songwriter. In 1999, Deschanel made her film debut in Mumford, followed by her breakout role as young protagonist William Miller's troubled older sister Anita in Cameron Crowe's 2000 semi-autobiographical film Almost Famous. Deschanel soon became known for her deadpan or "Manic Pixie Dream Girl" supporting roles in films such as Elf (2003), The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005), Failure to Launch (2006), Bridge to Terabithia (2007), and Happening, TheThe Happening (2008). She then began playing lead roles in films, including Yes Man (2008) and (500) Days of Summer (2009). She currently stars in the Fox series New Girl. She has been nominated for Golden Globe and Grammy Awards.
For a few years starting in 2001, Deschanel performed in the jazz cabaret act If All the Stars Were Pretty Babies with fellow actress Samantha Shelton. Besides singing, she plays keyboards, percussion, banjo and ukulele. She also often sings in her films. Deschanel teamed up with M. Ward to release their debut album Volume One (recorded with M. Ward under the moniker She & Him) which was released in March 2008. The follow-up album Volume Two was released in the U.S. in March 2010. She married Death Cab for Cutie frontman Ben Gibbard in September 2009, and filed for divorce from him in December 2011.