When does it *feel* to you that the new year starts ?

[jcb]

When does it *feel* to you that the new year starts ?

Of course, the official new year starts on january 1st, but I've always felt that the new year starts in august, for a couple reasons:
① I've gone to school (high school and university) for many years, more than the average person, and school always starts in august.
② Some professional american sports leagues start in the fall and end in the spring, such as the NFL (football) (september-february), and the NBA (basketball) (october-april).
③ I live in the upper midwest, which has long, cold winters, so the summer ending (in august) feels more like a significant event than the winter just continuing (in january).
④ New Years (january 1st) is only a week after Christmas (december 25th), which is a much more intensely celebrated holiday. So, by the time january 1st comes, the celebration seems less intense than that from just a week before, and people seem tired of celebrating in general.
⑤ I'm not a farmer, so the growing season (spring-fall) is irrelevant to me.

Honestly, New Years feels like a minor holiday on par with St Patrick's Day, where if one celebrates it all, it's done by going to a party with friends, maybe wearing a costume, and mostly getting drunk.

So, what are your thoughts ? Does anyone else feel similar ?

[hwhatting]

Definitely beginning of January.
As soon as you're out of school, the summer vacation break becomes irrelevant*) and August / September become months like any other. Business, expecially in big companies, is mostly structured around the calendar year - at the end of the year, you prepare and submit plans and budgets; even if you're not working in Accounting, you get these drives to submit your expenses and any incoming invoices before the year's closing, you make last pushes to fulfill the annual targets, and then you go for the Christmas break - here in Germany, most people who don't work in retail or services take the days between Christmas and the New Year off, and some companies (the one I work for included) even close down officially. It's called Die Zeit zwischen den Jahren**) "The time between years" in German, a time you spend with family or meeting friends, not working, and you emerge from that at the beginning of January with the feeling that a new period has started.
*) Even if you have school aged children, you have maybe 2-3 weeks summer vacation, after which you return to your old job where nothing significant has changed - you haven't progressed to a new level like at school.
**) So basically, Dec. 24th - Jan. 1st; it can be a bit longer depending on how the weekends fall in a specific year or on whether you take extra vacation days.

[Raphael]

Good question. I'm not sure about the answer.

For me, it used to be a while after Jan 1st, not because of any specific events, but simply because, if you've spent a year getting used to the idea that the current year is, say, 2002, getting used to it suddenly being 2003 can take a while. I think, if I remember correctly, that sometimes it took me until the middle of the year to really internalize the new year number. I think that effect got less intense for me more recently, though.

[Raphael]

Addendum:

Honestly, New Years feels like a minor holiday on par with St Patrick's Day, where if one celebrates it all, it's done by going to a party with friends, maybe wearing a costume, and mostly getting drunk.

Well, if you're a culturally somewhat Christian mostly secularized German person, like me, and you're from a part of the country where Karneval still is not much of a thing, and you're too old to hunt eggs on Easter, then, basically, Christmas and New Year are the only two sort-of serious holidays of the year for you, with the rest just being random days off.

[linguistcat]

I just don't have an inherent sense of time so I don't feel anything like that. It's either started or it hasn't, no feeling to it. Lock downs for Covid only made that worse and I still can't believe it's been two years since a couple dear friends died (separately and unrelated to Covid) and almost a year since my kid was born.

[Creyeditor]

Good question. I'm not sure about the answer.

For me, it used to be a while after Jan 1st, not because of any specific events, but simply because, if you've spent a year getting used to the idea that the current year is, say, 2002, getting used to it suddenly being 2003 can take a while. I think, if I remember correctly, that sometimes it took me until the middle of the year to really internalize the new year number. I think that effect got less intense for me more recently, though.

It's the same for me. Usually, somewhere between february and april, which coincides with the beginning of spring as well as the end of the winter senester at my university. January feels weirdly in between for me.

[hwhatting]

Well, if you're a culturally somewhat Christian mostly secularized German person, like me, and you're from a part of the country where Karneval still is not much of a thing, and you're too old to hunt eggs on Easter, then, basically, Christmas and New Year are the only two sort-of serious holidays of the year for you, with the rest just being random days off.

Quoted for truth.
I actually live in the core area of Karneval, in the Rhineland, but having grown up in Northern Germany, I never really got involved; the most my wife and I do is to watch our neighborhood parade together with friends. But for a lot of people, it's a really big thing, and I wouldn't be surprised if a Rhinelander would tell me that he's rather counting Karneval seasons instead of calendar years.
In the Russian-speaking / post-Soviet area, New Year's Eve is even more important than in Western countries; it's our New Year's Eve and Christmas rolled into one. People celebrate at parties, put up a tree, children get presents, there are fireworks - all on one day. The main difference to Germany is that the period where business grounds to a halt only starts with New Year's Eve; it runs 1-2 weeks through Orthodox Christmas up to "Old style calendar New Year".

[Linguoboy]

I like the Persians have this right. The year really doesn't get started until mid-March when--in Chicago at any rate--people start emerging from the hibernation they've been in since New Year's or even longer.

[Raphael]

I like the Persians have this right. The year really doesn't get started until mid-March when--in Chicago at any rate--people start emerging from the hibernation they've been in since New Year's or even longer.

Then again, perhaps some Persians subjectively feel that the year starts a while after March...

[Ares Land]

Oh, in September, definitely. Part of it is memories from my school days. Part of it is because I got young kids and I tend to schedule things around the school years. Part of it is cultural I think.
Unless you're in the tourism industry, the country basically shuts down entirely in August. Then suddenly in September everything restarts again all at once, so la rentrée always feels a little dramatic.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

I think it maybe feels like it begins sometime in late May or early June. This may partly be because of the academic year (in my mind) ending in May or June, depending on where you live, and partly because summer has a vaguely hazy, timeless feel to it to me (spring and autumn are when I like to actually do things, and late autumn and winter especially are full of holidays). Instinctually, in creative contexts, I nearly always order the seasons summer, autumn, winter, spring.

[foxcatdog]

Instinctually, in creative contexts, I nearly always order the seasons summer, autumn, winter, spring.

Doesn't everyone do this? Or am i simply a southern hemisphere person.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

Instinctually, in creative contexts, I nearly always order the seasons summer, autumn, winter, spring.

Doesn't everyone do this? Or am i simply a southern hemisphere person.

I do this despite living in the Northern Hemisphere. I think the usual ordering I'm used to seeing is spring, summer, autumn, winter.

[Torco]

used to be march, when the school year begins. these days it doesn't feel like anything cause there's not been a lot of yearly shape to my life, just the succession of the seasons, and there's no beggining or ending there.

also, i'm southern and i feel like if anything, summer is the first one cause conventionally the year begins in the summer. christmas means sipping on a beer in the cool of a summer night before the giftgiving thing. honestly it feels like having christmas and new years in winter is probably quite harsh, indoorsy and even somewhat claustrophobic ?

[zompist]

honestly it feels like having christmas and new years in winter is probably quite harsh, indoorsy and even somewhat claustrophobic ?

Winter is harsh and makes you want to be indoors-- that's why Northern Europeans have the big holidays then.

(I say Northern because so far as I know it's Germans and English who make a huge thing out of Christmas. I don't think it was historically huge in, say, Italy. Liturgically Easter is a bigger thing.)

[Travis B.]

I feel the year goes by fall, winter, spring, summer for whatever reason. Winter is simply between fall and spring, while summer's end seems like where one year ends and another begins.

[Torco]

honestly it feels like having christmas and new years in winter is probably quite harsh, indoorsy and even somewhat claustrophobic ?

Winter is harsh and makes you want to be indoors-- that's why Northern Europeans have the big holidays then.

(I say Northern because so far as I know it's Germans and English who make a huge thing out of Christmas. I don't think it was historically huge in, say, Italy. Liturgically Easter is a bigger thing.)

this is true. supposedly for spaniards too, easter, the holy week, and the festivity of the town's local saint were bigger. also, without internet/tv/etcetera, the winter probably gets quite boring, and increased solidarity probably helps families who had bad years and might otherwise risk hunger etcetera.

[jcb]

Winter is harsh and makes you want to be indoors-- that's why Northern Europeans have the big holidays then.

But winter being harsh is exactly what makes me want to /not/ travel to holiday parties ! My car has gotten stuck in the snow many times. It's never fun, and sometimes even dangerous. I'd much prefer it if Christmas was in the summer. (Heck, I'd much prefer it if there was just much less snow and cold in general where I live !)

I suppose this wasn't as big of an issue before industrialization, because travelling long distances then in winter simply wasn't possible.

[Torco]

sure it was, what do you mean? it just takes long... weeks or months instead of one or two days. but i know peruvians who take a *bus* to Lima from Santiago, three days of sitting down, to spend christmas with their peeps, and that's when a one-day alternative is relatively easy to access for three or four times the price. the cold makes the trip harsher, sure, but people were more used to hard climate than we are today, and plus, there's always boats.

[hwhatting]

sure it was, what do you mean? it just takes long... weeks or months instead of one or two days. but i know peruvians who take a *bus* to Lima from Santiago, three days of sitting down, to spend christmas with their peeps, and that's when a one-day alternative is relatively easy to access for three or four times the price. the cold makes the trip harsher, sure, but people were more used to hard climate than we are today, and plus, there's always boats.

Yes, but before industrialisation and modern mass transport (like the railway), people moving far away from their home villages / towns was a much rarer thing, and therefore "going home for holiday XYZ" was as well.