New Year’s Eve is the night of December 31. “Eve” means the night before a big holiday, like in the word “evening,” so December 24th is Christmas Eve. (“Eve” is also a woman’s name; according to the Bible, she was the first woman on earth, wife to Adam.) New Year’s Eve is basically the end of the so-called “holiday season,” the time stretching from Thanksgiving to New Year’s Day. (Some would now say the “holiday season” in the US starts on Halloween, October 31.)  Hear more about Christmas and the “holiday season” here.

Since New Year’s falls exactly one week after Christmas, this is a special time of year. For example, practically all schools and colleges are closed during this period. Most US colleges are closed for about one month, from early December to early/mid January. Most colleges have their fall semester exams before the Christmas (winter) break, so students returning in January start the spring semester. All K-12 schools are closed for Christmas too, usually for about two weeks or so. Most classes resume on January 2. This is why the online classes at DreyerCoaching.com also pause for about two weeks at this time each year, and restart on January 2.

New Year’s Eve is such a big holiday, most businesses close that day, or at least close early. For example, most grocery stores that are open 24/7 all year, close only twice a year: over Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, and again on New Year’s Eve until the morning of New Year’s Day, January 1.

Americans celebrate New Year’s Eve in many ways. Some prefer to stay at home, just with family, and have a quiet evening. Others like to invite some friends over, or else go out with friends. Many people like to stay up till midnight and “ring in” the new year.  Some families like to stop right at midnight, hold hands, and pray as the new year starts, asking for God’s guidance and blessing in the new year.  For many people, drinking alcohol is a big part of New Year’s Eve. While some people must think it’s fun to hit the bottle, we should also remember that drinking and driving is very dangerous, and can hurt or even kill people. Plus, it seems to me, it is better to wake up on the first morning of the new year feeling good and fresh, instead of having a bad headache or hangover.

Since the world is round and has 24 time zones, different parts of the world celebrate at different times. For us here in Virginia, USA, we are 13 hours behind East Asia, and six or seven hours behind Europe, so if we check the news around lunch time, we’ll see news reports of New Year’s Eve fireworks in places like Australia, Hong Kong, or Taiwan, and around dinner time, we’ll see celebrations from London, Berlin or Paris.

Here is a video of some New Year’s Eve celebrations in Asia! Notice how beautiful the fireworks in Hong Kong are– you can enjoy them in the sky AND reflecting on the water of Victoria Harbor!

My wife and I had a remarkable New Year’s Eve 2016, welcoming 2017, on board a small boat in Hong Kong’s famous Victoria Harbor. You can practice your listening and hear the story here.  Check out some of the images from that beautiful night, below.

26195701 10214885772915792 8997226225580278510 n26731579 10214885764195574 6395010839813184706 n

26195713 10214885778795939 365815727747560909 n

26195932 10214885758795439 8601814892309783841 n

One iconic New Year’s celebration is watching the ball drop in Times Square in New York City. Starting on New Year’s Eve 1907 to welcome 1908, there has been a ball drop slowly from a pole to welcome the new year each December, except for 1942 and 1943, because of blackouts for World War II. Some report that more than 1 billion people watch this on TV, and thousands crowd into Times Square that day, to get a spot to watch it. Since the crowds are so huge, people have to go early that day to get a spot, and if you leave, you won’t get your space back!

You can watch a video of the 2017 Ball Drop here. Listen for the traditional New Year’s Eve song, Auld Lang Syne, right at the stroke of midnight. Since the famous ball drop is in New York City, listen next for the famous Frank Sinatra song,   New York, New York.

On New Year’s Eve, in addition to celebrating, many people think back on the past year, both the good and bad things that happened, and make plans for the new year just ahead!

To find out about the next day, New Year’s Day, read here!

Thanks for reading!

************

Do YOU need help with English, or knowing how Americans celebrate holidays? Join an online class! Contact Scott today to find out how!

Since 2010, based in the friendly USA State of Virginia, DreyerCoaching.com has been providing customized, high-quality, real-time language instruction via the internet to a global audience in their home, school, or office. Think how comfortable, confident and successful you or your child will feel, receiving personalized guidance from college-educated teachers who are native speakers and have bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees plus decades of teaching experience. Whether you are looking for help with the ABCs or the SATs, or college admissions to conversational English to business writing, we serve all ages and levels to help our students make dreams come true. Discover the Dreyer Difference. Take the first step and visit DreyerCoaching.com, send Scott an email, or schedule a free consultation to get started. 

自 2010 年以来,DreyerCoaching.com 总部位于友好的美国弗吉尼亚州,一直通过互联网向全球观众在家中、学校或办公室提供有制度的、高质量的实时语言教学。 想想您或您的孩子会感到多么自在、自信和成功,从受过大学教育的教师那里获得个别的指导,这些教师都是以英语为母语,拥有学士、硕士和博士学位,以及数十年的教学经验的教师。 无论是从 英语ABC的基础课程 或 SAT 的帮助,就读美国高中,大学入学申请,还是从会话英语到商务写作,我们都为所有年龄和水平的学生提供服务,帮助我们的学生实现梦想。 发觉 Dreyer 的不同之处。 迈出第一步,游览 DreyerCoaching.com网站,向 Scott 发送电子邮件,可开始安排一个免费咨询

Verified by MonsterInsights