Happy New Year!

It was close to New Year. Dressed in a warm, bright red jacket especially made for the climate and equipped with my trusted camera and a radio beacon on my belt, I was traversing a huge floating iceberg in Antarctica. This was one of the most memorable experiences of all my travel adventures. It is the best time of the year to travel in this region as it is summer. That said, New Year has been a special moment in time for practically everyone around the globe, albeit with different celebratory customs. In 1914 when WW I had taken over Europe, British forces, freezing miserably in the muddy, wet trenches of Belgium and France, spontaneously started to sing songs and play games at Christmas and New Year. The German forces stopped firing as well and joined in with their own songs. This remarkable unofficial peacetime was dubbed “Christmas Truce.” Yes, it is a time to sit back and reflect wherever you are. Although I have now worked on Marco Island for almost 45 years, my work and hobby have brought me in contact with amazing people all over the world, and they all celebrate Christmas and New Years in their own way. In the vast lands of Russia, most particularly in Siberia, courageous people jump into a hole in frozen lakes to plant trees at the bottom under the frozen surface as a symbol of starting over. This is accomplished with a lot of encouragement from bystanders and copious amounts of vodka to help the rigorous divers. Kitzhi Island is an island in remote Lake Onega that is one of the over one thousand remote lakes in Russia and Siberia. 

According to legend, a carpenter by the name of Nestor built the 121-foot-high Church of Transfiguration here to celebrate the New Year in 1714. Nestor used only an ax and interlocked all wooden parts of the construction without nails. When the project was completed, he threw the ax in the lake so it could never be used again. Additionally, Russia has eleven different time zones, theoretically allowing travelers to celebrate multiple times when traveling.

Bavaria in southern Germany is one of the European areas where many people still celebrate the holidays traditionally lighting real candles on the tree on Christmas Eve while listening to classical music. Historic sites like the famous Neuschwanstein Castle, completed in 1869 for King Ludwig II after 20 years in construction, add to the romantic holiday atmosphere. It is said the King only lived in this immense structure of over 200 rooms for a total of 11 days! This castle gave Walt Disney the inspiration for Disney World’s castle entrance.

New Year's in the Philippines is celebrated with round “coins” and twelve round fruits depicting the twelve months of the year. The coins are a symbol of good financial fortune for the following year, whereas in much of Central and South America one wears yellow underwear to symbolize money and red for love. Yes, let your imagination wander. In Greece, onions are hung above the front door and on New Year's Day, they are taken down and bumped on children’s heads to give them “Good Fortune.” 

When King Jigme Singye Wangchuck of the magical Kingdom of Bhutan in the Himalayas first opened his country to tourism, only 4,000 people were allowed to enter during that first year to protect the culture and tradition of the secluded mountainous lands. Due to the “holy status” of most mountain peaks, much of the country remains closed. But education was one of the King’s main focuses, consequently schooling has always been fully paid for by the government. The King’s son and present King, Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck, was sent to Europe and the United States for his advanced education and became the world’s youngest King at the age of twenty-eight. Since that time foreign investors have been building in the country and television and internet have been introduced. One can only imagine how this changed the mountainous landlocked country. I was fortunate enough to visit before all this happened (more in a future story). The Bhutanese have their own special way to welcome the next year. The first three days of the year are spent cleaning their homes, followed by offerings at the temples, dances and singing, as well as cooking special New Year’s meals, consisting mainly of chiles and Bhutanese cheese with butter.

China enters a fifteen-day festival starting with the new moon towards the end of January. First day of the second or third New Moon. And Rio de Janeiro is one of the most festive cities to celebrate the New Year with its multi-color festivities similar to the Brazilian Carnival held every year before Lent.

Kiribati, in the Central Pacific Ocean, is the first country to welcome in the New Year. It is a small island country, part of the Micronesia archipelago of 33 islands, located 2,500 miles from Hawaii. The republic is a member of the independent Commonwealth of Nations, consisting of 56 countries, and formerly part of the British Empire. Previously, Kiribati was divided by the dateline and had to cope with a 23-hour time difference from one area to the next. In 1944 President Teburoro decided to move the dateline around the islands. And on New Year's Day 2000 the country re-named one of its islands Millennium Island.

Most of us in the United States use the 12-hour clock and the digital version has become so popular that, regretfully, many children don’t even learn anymore how to read an analog clock. Dealing with the numerous time zones during my travels and being educated in Europe, I still work with the 24-hour clock as it seems so much more logical. Some years ago, I traveled with a specially chartered Oriental Express Train on the Trans-Siberian route from China to Moscow and covered nine different time zones of Russia’s eleven time zones. It would have been quite confusing using the 12-hour clock. 

However, over one million people in New York’s Times Square still watch the ball drop with the 12-hour digital clock at Time Square.

There are different numbers from different sources about how many people actually watch the old year being replaced by the new, ranging from 70% to figures of two out of five Americans falling asleep. And then there are those hard-core revelers who will continue to find a way to celebrate twice. A few years ago, a private charter jet company offered 19 passengers a trip on a Gulfstream jet for $20,000 per person to depart from Sydney in Australia at 2:00 AM after a party in downtown and arriving in Honolulu at around 4:00 PM (16:00!) the same day on December 31st to start the next New Year party. Even more unique, United Airlines has a scheduled flight that leaves the US territory of Guam in Micronesia on January 1 at 7:35 AM to arrive in Honolulu at 6:50 PM (18:50) the previous day, December 31st with ample time for parties at either end. 

Over the last few years, we have opted for celebrating the New Year in northern Maine, gathering with family in front of the open fire in a remote cottage nestled in the forest on a bluff at the edge of a frozen lake. New Year’s in winter wonderland!