TRIVIA:
QUOTES:
CHUCKLES/BELLY
LAUGHS & GROANERS
TRIVIA:
New Year Trivia Quiz
Ten
multiple choice trivia questions about New Year holiday history and tradition
By Deanna Mascle,
1. Under which calendar
is New Year's Day Jan. 1?
A. Julian Calendar
B. Gregorian Calendar
C. Jewish Calendar
D. Chinese Calendar
E. All of the above
B. Gregorian Calendar
QQ: New Year's
Day is the first day of the year, Jan. 1, in the Gregorian calendar. Traditionally
the day has been observed as a religious feast, but in modern times the
arrival of the New Year has also become an occasion for spirited celebration
and the making of personal resolutions.
2. What calendar
determines the date of the Chinese New Year?
A. Lunar
B. Solar
C. Chinese
D. Zen
A. Lunar
QQ: The Chinese
New Year, traditionally based on the lunar calendar, is celebrated in many
American cities with the roar of blazing firecrackers, dancing dragons
made from papier mâché and cloth, and traditional music.
3. Rosh Hashanah
is the beginning of the new year for what religion?
A. Muslim
B. Christian
C. Buddhist
D. Jewish
D. Jewish
QQ: Rosh Hashanah
(Hebrew, "beginning of the year"), Jewish New Year, celebrated on the first
and second days of the Jewish month of Tishri (falling in September or
October) by Orthodox and Conservative Jews and on the first day alone by
Reform Jews. It begins the observance of the Ten Penitential Days, a period
ending with Yom Kippur that is the most solemn of the Jewish calendar.
Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are known as the High Holy Days.
4. Kwanzaa is a
seven-day holiday that begins Dec. 26 and extends through Jan. 1. What
does the word mean in Swahili?
A. First fruits
B. First people
C. First days
D. First dance
A. First fruits
QQ: Kwanzaa, or
matunda ya kwanza, is Swahili for "first fruits". This is an African American
holiday observed by African communities throughout the world that celebrates
family, community, and culture. Kwanzaa has its roots in the ancient African
first-fruit harvest celebrations from which it takes its name. However,
its modern history begins in 1966 when it was developed by African American
scholar and activist Maulana Karenga.
5. In the Middle
Ages most European countries used the Julian calendar, so they observed
New Year's Day when?
A. Feb. 14th
B. March 25th
C. April 1st
D. May 21st
B. March 25th
QQ: In the Middle
Ages most European countries used the Julian calendar and observed New
Year's Day on March 25, called Annunciation Day and celebrated as the occasion
on which it was revealed to Mary that she would give birth to the Son of
God.
6. The name January
is derived from the Roman god Janus. What is he the god of?
A. Wine and grapes
B. Babies and childbirth
C. Clocks and calendars
D. Gates and doors
D. Gates and doors
QQ: The name of
the month is derived from Janus, the Roman god of gates and doors, and
hence of openings and beginnings. January was the 11th month of the year
in the ancient Roman calendar; in the 2nd century BC, however, it came
to be regarded as the first month. On January 1 the Romans offered sacrifices
to Janus so that he would bless the new year.
7. When to the practioners
of Tibetan Buddhism celebrate New Year's?
A. Never
B. January
C. February
D. March
C. February
QQ: Much of the
ritual of Tibetan Buddhism is based on the esoteric mysticism of Tantra,
devotions that involve both yoga and mantra, or a mystical formula, and
ancient shamanistic practices. On special holidays the temples, shrines,
and altars of the lamas are decorated with symbolic figures; milk, butter,
tea, flour, and similar offerings are brought by the worshipers, animal
sacrifices being strictly forbidden. Tibetan Buddhist religious festivals
are numerous. The most notable are New Year's, celebrated in February and
marking the commencement of spring
8. The Roman New
Year festival was called the Calends, and people decorated their homes
and gave each other gifts. In early times, the ancient Romans gave each
other New Year's gifts of branches from sacred trees. Later they gave small
items, such as nuts or coins, imprinted with pictures of what God?
A. Julius Caesar
B. Jesus Christ
C. Janus
D. Zeus
C. Janus
QQ: In later years,
they gave gold-covered nuts or coins imprinted with pictures of Janus,
the god of gates, doors, and beginnings. January was named after Janus,
who had two faces--one looking forward and the other looking backward.
The Romans also brought gifts to the emperor. The emperors eventually began
to demand such gifts.
9. What New Year's
gift did ancient Persians give?
A. Money
B. Eggs
C. Cakes
D. Rugs
B. Eggs
QQ: The ancient
Persians gave New Year's gifts of eggs, which symbolized productiveness.
10. In ancient Egypt
what event dictated the timing of New Year's celebrations?
A. Pharaoh's birthday
B. Flooding of
Nile
C. Solar eclipse
D. Exact alignment
of stars with Great Pyramid
B. Flooding of Nile
QQ: In ancient
Egypt, New Year was celebrated at the time the River Nile flooded, which
was near the end of September. The flooding of the Nile was very important
because without it, the people would not have been able to grow crops in
the dry desert. At New Year, statues of the god, Amon and his wife and
son were taken up the Nile by boat. Singing, dancing, and feasting was
done for a month, and then the statues were taken back to the temple.
QUOTES:
New Years Quotes
Time has no divisions
to mark its passage, there is never a thunder-storm or blare of trumpets
to announce the beginning of a new month or year. Even when a new century
begins it is only we mortals who ring bells and fire off pistols.
-Thomas Mann
Each age has deemed
the new-born year
The fittest time
for festal cheer.
-Sir Walter Scott
Youth is when you're
allowed to stay up late on New Year's Eve. Middle age is when you're forced
to.
-Bill Vaughan
An optimist stays
up until midnight to see the new year in. A pessimist stays up to make
sure the old year leaves.
-Bill Vaughan
Many people look
forward to the New Year for a new start on old habits.
-Author Unknown
A New Year's resolution
is something that goes in one year and out the other.
-Author Unknown
No one ever regarded
the First of January with indifference. It is that from which all date
their time, and count upon what is left. It is the nativity of our common
Adam.
-Charles Lamb
New Year's Day is
every man's birthday.
-Charles Lamb
The merry year is
born
Like the bright
berry from the naked thorn.
-Hartley Coleridge
New Year's eve is
like every other night; there is no pause in the march of the universe,
no breathless moment of silence among created things that the passage of
another twelve months may be noted; and yet no man has quite the same thoughts
this evening that come with the coming of darkness on other nights.
-Hamilton Wright
Mabie The Old Year
has gone. Let the dead past bury its own dead. The New Year has taken possession
of the clock of time. All hail the duties and possibilities of the coming
twelve months!
-Edward Payson
Powell
Every man should
be born again on the first day of January. Start with a fresh page. Take
up one hole more in the buckle if necessary, or let down one, according
to circumstances; but on the first of January let every man gird himself
once more, with his face to the front, and take no interest in the things
that were and are past.
-Henry Ward Beecher
The new year begins
in a snow-storm of white vows.
-George William
Curtis
I do think New Year's
resolutions can't technically be expected to begin on New Year's Day, don't
you? Since, because it's an extension of New Year's Eve, smokers are already
on a smoking roll and cannot be expected to stop abruptly on the stroke
of midnight with so much nicotine in the system. Also dieting on New Year's
Day isn't a good idea as you can't eat rationally but really need to be
free to consume whatever is necessary, moment by moment, in order to ease
your hangover. I think it would be much more sensible if resolutions began
generally on January the second.
-Helen Fielding,
The proper behavior
all through the holiday season is to be drunk. This drunkenness culminates
on New Year's Eve, when you get so drunk you kiss the person you're married
to.
-P.J. O'Rourke
We meet today
To thank Thee for
the era done,
And Thee for the
opening one.
-John Greenleaf
Whittier
