We all know about how to celebrate New Year’s Eve, right?  Parties, Times Square, watching the ball drop, drinking champagne, dancing until the wee hours.  But did they celebrate the same way in 18th century England?

This question came up when I was writing the second book in my House of Pleasure series called Only Marriage Will Do and it quickly became a thorny problem.  There’s not a lot of information on New Year’s celebrations for that time period, and I needed some kind of celebration for the final scene of the novel.  So what’s a writer to do?  Be creative and make it up?  Change the need for it in the book?

I am always leery of making up stuff that someone somewhere is going to read and say “That’s not right!  They didn’t do ____.  They should be doing _____.”  Even though I might never know I was totally wrong, I would always have that suspicion.  And the timeline for the novel really needed this scene to take place on New Year’s Eve. 

So this writer buckled down, worked the internet, went to libraries and came up with a lot of information on the history of New Years.  And for New Year’s Eve 2010, I thought I’d share.

The traditions of New Year’s celebrations go back at least to the ancient Romans.  Their celebration, which took place during a festival called the Saturnalia, was a time of partying and drinking to pay homage to Saturn, the god of agriculture and time.  Our tradition of partying probably originates with this celebration.

For a cool link on the Saturnalia go to http://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia_romana/calendar/saturnalia.html

But 1700 or so years later, what were they doing on New Year’s Eve  in London specifically?  I seemed to find information on almost any place but London.  In the colonies there was no formal type of celebration, but according to a Colonial Williamsburg site there was a good bit of rowdy behavior, violence, and vandalism.  Happy New Year indeed!

At least by 1761 Londoners were celebrating in December-January.  Until 1752 Britain had celebrated the New Year according to the Julian calendar, when it was held on March 25, about the time of the vernal equinox.

I finally broke down and consulted Wikipedia, my least favorite source, but there was a reference that I could work with that had a named source.  In the late 17th century Christmas was celebrated with lavish dinners, merry-making, masquerades, and parties.  Because 18th century London loved masquerades, I decided that would be an appropriate celebration for my New Year’s scene and indeed it worked out very well in the novel.  And I learned a lot about New Year through the ages.

My New Year’s Eve will be spent at home, with my husband and some much needed together time.  Private celebrations are sometimes the best (wicked smile).

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL!

How will you ring in 2011?