New Years Day????

[cee-dee]

January the first seems a logical choice from a calendar point of view but the "new year" had already started by then?

The shortest day is around the 21st of December so the next day is surely the start of a new year?

"They" want to stop the annual clock changing lark and adopt GMT+1 all the year round sooooo, to all those who seem to want to change everything, how about changing the first of January to the day after the shortest day? 

[astrologica]

Nooooooooo!😀 I had enough trouble with decimalisation and the metric system!  I still measure everything in inches. The Winter Solstice is the beginning of a new season..not the start of a New Year. To me, it's a lovely thing, because it means that the days are lengthening and the light is coming back. January 1st is a New Year..a new calendar..a new start..that's a lovely thing too.

I think you've got the devil in you today CeeDee! Trying to cause a bit of mischief!😀😀😀

[dark_castle1]

Mmmmm food for thought there ceedee ! What would happen to Christmas Day though CD, there would be no 25th December !   

[cee-dee]

Well now, the Earth revolves round the sun and takes around 365 days to do so.

That being so, I suppose it depends on just where you consider the beginning and end of a yearly cycle to be? Starting just after the shortest day and ending on the shortest day seems a logical point to consider?

Now everyone (???) knows that there are those with far too much time on their hands who continually dream up things (that were working just fine) to make unasked for changes and we see now that people are not awarded (for instance) an MBE, they're now "appointed" MBE.

Sooooo, lets change the calendar eh? We'll just move the dates a bit. The calendar will still have (approx) 365 days, still have (approx) 52 weeks, still have 12 months but just have been shifted a week. You'll still have all the usual dates and of course still have December 25th. 

As to the historical significance of the birth of JC (noooooo, NOT Jeremy Corbyn), argument has raged for centuries as to when, exactly that was so a bit more argument doesn't matter? 

[fallen-archie]

My goodness CD you do have some strange ideas🤔 although it did get me thinking that for me the new year starts when spring arrives the first daffodils appear and the days are really starting to draw out, starting a new year in the depths of winter seems a bit irresponsible if like me you have a tendency to hibernate, so on that basis please don’t tinker around the edges go the whole hog and join in with the increasingly popular habit of hibernating😇

[dark_castle1]

I wonder if JC hated having his birthday on the same day as Christmas ! fewer presents  

[cee-dee]

Strange? Nah, logical. Some things have a beginning and an end. Sometimes it's difficult to know where which is which and some like to start things at the end of the beginning or is it the beginning of the end?

It's therefore logical that the end of one revolution (of the Earth round the Sun) means that the beginning of the next revolution follows. At present, calendarwise we're celebrating the beginning of the next revolution a week after it's really started!

As to the birth of JC, logic doesn't seem to have come in to it. The Anunciation is supposed to be March 25th and nine months after ends up at December 25th if the baby was "on time" and the conception was back in March BUT.....

The shepherds were suposed to be watching their flocks by night (according to Luke) but they wouldn't be out there in December? Luke also mentioned the census but the Romans didn't do the census in December?

Some arguments variously put the birth in June, July and even October so it's a case of "take your pick"?

[023mjc]

---

@cee-dee wrote: how about changing the first of January to the day after the shortest day?

---

So any one born between Dec 21st and Dec 31st, will miss out on a birthday. 

Or in my case

[dark_castle1]

023, be like me and not call them birthdays, I call them anniversaries and it does not sound quite as bad     

[theelench]

Back in 1582 there were riots when they decided to alter the calendar, ostensibly because uneducated people feared that they had had the missing days "stolen" from their lives.  I suspect the rioting had more to do with the system in place at the time that used the Quarter Days for paying wages, calculating interest and repaying debt.  

Augustus would have announced a census in December as part of the religious ceremonies for the inauguration of the new year, giving it a quasi-sacred backing but things moved slower back then.  In December the sea-routes were often closed so it could have been a month or two before the Judean governor even heard about it, issued the local decree and counting began.  

Even knowing the year of the census doesn't help much as the Romans were using the Julian calendar, that was changed in 1582, so depending on which is used it could have been A.D 5 or 6.

All in all mucking about with the clocks is bad enough and the ramifications of changing the calendar would be horrendous.  Perhaps the best thing would be to abolish it altogether and go over to a simple numeric system like Star Trek,  New Year could then be 2019. 001. (+ whatever for the stray hours and minutes). 

[cee-dee]

Ah, but first there'd have to be a decision made (by whom?) on just when to start counting from?

Would the "time and date" be the same worldwide?

Numerical time might be OK on a starship but we live on a revolving Planet in orbit round a Star.

[cee-dee]

I see the New Year started in the Southern hemisphere a couple of hours or so ago so numerical time might be just a bit difficult to get your head round?

[theelench]

Would it be any more confused, or confusing than attaching a "1st of January"  label to whichever day you chose.  If the 1st is somewhere near our shortest day it's near their longest.  So are they not just a couple of hours early but more like six months?

Should the Ozzies be celebrating at all in mid-summer or should they have had their New Year six months ago?

[**caution**opinion_ahead]

The academic yr starts in Sept, the tax yr starts in April, the gardening yr starts in March (unless you are a very hardy creature or living on the balmy south coast), so any of those could be selected as the beginning of the calendar yr.  Or you could randomly choose a month when not much else happens, to spread out the bank holidays. 

Good luck getting any sort of consensus though! 😉

[fallen-archie]

HNY to you caution & lovely to see you and log box too! We always reach a consensus on here 😇 indeed I cannot recall the last time we didn’t, having said that my memory isn’t up to much these days 😩

[dark_castle1]

fallen, I have a fantastic memory ! just let me go back to the start of the thread to see what we were all talking about, I may be some time as I might get lost on the way there or the way back so continue without me for a while   

[**caution**opinion_ahead]

Thank you, FallenArchie!  Not been round these parts for yonks!  Struggled to remember my password to get in!

i suggest a national referendum to decide the matter in hand.  Say, 12 choices on the ballot paper!  Bound to get a clear front runner, and, naturally, everyone will fall happily in behind the result!  

[fallen-archie]

Thank you DC for your compassion & understanding, please when you find your way back do furnish me with your findings😀
I know what you mean about passwords, I had a torrid time after my event, couldn’t get in anywhere open emails etc etc, thankfully things have improved marginally as long as I am not taxed by questions like, What day is it🥴
Anyway don’t be a stranger or I will forget you too🤭