New Years Eve is coming！.doc

New Years Eve is coming！EnglandIn England, clocks symbolize the transition that occurs at the stroke of midnight on New Years Eve. The celebration in London focuses on Big Ben (Westminster Clock Tower) the bell and by association the clock housed in the clock tower at the Palace of Westminster. These celebrations are aired by the BBC and other networks. Parties are held across the country, in pubs, clubs, and private houses. At the stroke of midnight, people join hands in a ring and sing Auld Lang Syne.Thousands of people gather in central London for New Year celebrations, including fireworks at the London Eye at midnightOn New Years Eve 2010, an estimated 250,000 people gathered to view an eight-minute fireworks display around and above the London Eye which was, for the first time, set to a musical soundtrack. The celebrations in London continued into January 1, with the New Years Day Parade, held annually since 1987. The 2011 parade involved more than 10,000 musicians, cheerleaders and performers.30Other major New Year events are held in the cities of Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, and Newcastle.ScotlandIn Scotland, New Years (Hogmanay) is celebrated with several different customs, such as First-Footing, which involves friends or family members going to each others houses with a gift of whisky and sometimes a lump of coal.Edinburgh, the Scottish capital, hosts one of the worlds most famous New Year celebrations. The celebration is focused on a major street party along Princes Street. The cannon is fired at Edinburgh Castle at the stroke of midnight, followed by a large fireworks display. Edinburgh hosts a festival of four or five days, beginning on 28 December, and lasting until New Years Day or January 2, which is also a bank holiday in Scotland.Other cities across Scotland, such as Aberdeen, Glasgow and Stirling have large organised celebrations too, including fireworks at midnight.BBC Scotland broadcast the celebrations in Edinburgh to a Scottish audience, with the celebrations also screened across the world. STV covers both worldwide New Year celebrations, and details of events happening around Scotland.WalesA Mari Lwyd c.1910-1914. Traditionally carried from door to door during Calennig in WalesThe Welsh tradition of giving gifts and money on New Years Day (Welsh: Calennig) is an ancient custom that survives in modern-day Wales, though nowadays it is now customary to give bread and cheese. Thousands of people descend every year on Cardiff to enjoy live music, catering, ice-skating, funfairs and fireworks. Many of the celebrations take place at Cardiff Castle and Cardiff City Hall.Every New Years Eve, the Nos Galan road race (Rasys Nos Galan), a 5-kilometre (3.1mi) running race, is held in Mountain Ash in the Cynon Valley, Rhondda Cynon Taf, South Wales. The race celebrates the life and achievements of Welsh runner Guto Nyth Brn. Founded in 1958 by local runner Bernard Baldwin, it is run over the 5 kilometre route of Gutos first competitive race. The main race starts with a church service at Llanwynno, and then a wreath is laid on Gutos grave in Llanwynno graveyard. After lighting a torch, it is carried to the nearby town of Mountain Ash, where the main race takes place.The race consists of a double circuit of the town centre, starting in Henry Street and ending in Oxford Street, by the commemorative statue of Guto. Traditionally, the race was timed to end at midnight, but in recent times it was rescheduled for the convenience of family entertainment, now concluding at around 9pm. This has resulted in a growth in size and scale, and the proceedings now start with an afternoon of street entertainment, and fun run races for children, concluding with the church service, elite runners race and presentations.AustraliaEach major city in Australia holds New Years Eve celebrations, usually accompanied by a fireworks display and other events. Gloucester Park, a racecourse in central Perth, is the largest and most recognized display in the Western Australian city. In Brisbane events are held at Southbank. At night, 50,000 people gather at sites around the Brisbane River to watch a fireworks display.The largest celebration in Australia is held in its largest city: Sydney. Each year, the celebrations in Sydney are accompanied by a theme with two pyrotechnic shows: the 9:00 pm Family Fireworks and the Midnight Fireworks. Centering on the Sydney Harbour Bridge, the fireworks are synchronized to a blend of popular music and a lighting display called the Bridge Effect, which displays various symbols and other images related to the current years theme, located on the bridge itself. The Midnight Fireworks are regularly watched by approximately 1.52 million people at Sydney Harbour. As one of the first major New Years celebrations globally each year, Sydneys Midnight Fireworks are often broadcast throughout the world during the day of 31 December. They are regularly watched by over one billion people. In Melbourne, the city follows suit with Sydney having a 9:30 Family Fireworks followed by the midnight fireworks. Celebrations are mostly centered on the Yarra River and Federation Square, as well as Docklands. Most of the firework shows in Melbourne are launched from boats along the river and from atop the citys various skyscrapers.New ZealandGisborne, New Zealand496.3 kilometres (308.4mi) west of the International Date Lineis the first major city to see the beginning of the new year. In New Zealand, cities celebrate with large street parties and fireworks displays. Local councils usually organise parties and street carnivals and fireworks displays, however, liquor bans have been imposed on many of the more popular areas due to disorder, vandalism and other anti-social behavior.In Auckland, the top of the Sky Tower (Auckland)the tallest freestanding structure tower in the Southern Hemisphereis the launch site for a fireworks show.The New Zealand national cricket team have begun playing a one-day International cricket game in Queenstown during the day of New Years Eve.CanadaNew Year traditions and celebrations in Canada vary regionally. New Years Eve (also called New Years Eve Day or Veille du Jour de lAn in French) is generally a social holiday. In many cities, such as Toronto and Niagara Falls in Ontario, Edmonton and Calgary in Alberta, Vancouver, British Columbia and Montreal, Quebec, there are large celebrations which may feature concerts, late-night partying, sporting events, and fireworks, with free public transit service during peak party times in most major cities. In some areas, such as in rural Quebec, people ice fish in the old days. Since 2000, the highlight of New Years Eve celebrations is in Montreals old port, which comes alive with concerts that take place and fireworks at midnight. From 1956 to 1976, Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians serenaded Canada on the CBC, via a feed from CBS, from the ballroom of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel on Park Avenue in New York City. After Lombardos death in 1977, the Royal Canadians continued on CBC and CBS until 1978.In 1992, the sketch comedy troupe Royal Canadian Air Farce began airing its annual Year of the Farce special on CBC Television, which features sketches lampooning the major events and news stories of the year. While the original 1992 edition was a one-off special, Year of the Farce episodes continued as a regular feature of the Air Farce television series which ran from 1993 to 2008airing its series finale on December 31, 2008. Following the finale of the television series, the original cast continued to participate in New Years Eve specials in the years following. Similarly, the CBCs French language network Ici Radio-Canada Tl airs its own yearly New Years Eve comedy special, Bye Bye. Unlike Year of the Farce, Bye Bye has been presented by various comedians; originally running from 1968 to 1998, it was revived in 2006 by the Qubcois troupe Rock et Belles Oreilles. Its 2008 edition, hosted and co-produced by Qubcois television personality Vronique Cloutier, became infamous for several sketches that many viewers perceived as offensive, including sketches making fun of English Canadians and then American president-elect Barack Obama. United StatesThe ball drop in New York Citys Times Square attracts a million spectators yearly.In the United States, New Years Eve is celebrated with formal parties, family-oriented activities, and other large public events.One of the most prominent celebrations in the country is the ball drop held in New York Citys Times Square. Inspired by the time balls that were formally used as a time signal, at 11:59p.m. ET, an 11,875-pound (5,386kg), 12-foot (3.7m) diameter Waterford crystal ball located on the roof of One Times Square is lowered down a pole that is 70 feet high, reaching the roof of the building 60 seconds later to signal the start of the New Year. The Ball Drop has been held since 1907, and in recent years has averaged around a million spectators annually. The popularity of the spectacle also inspired similar drop events outside of New York City, which often use objects that represent a regions culture, geography, or historysuch as Atlantas Peach Drop, representing Georgias identity as the Peach State, or Nashvilles Music Note Drop.The portrayal of festivities on radio and television has helped ingrain certain aspects of the celebration in American pop culture; beginning on the radio in 1928, and on CBS television from 1956 to 1976 (which also included coverage of the ball drop), Guy Lombardo and his band, The Royal Canadians, presented an annual New Years Eve broadcast from the ballroom of New Yorks Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. The broadcasts were also well known for the Royal Canadians signature performance of Auld Lang Syne at midnight, which helped popularize the song as a New Years standard. After Lombardos death in 1977, prominence shifted towards ABCs special Dick Clarks New Years Rockin Eve (which had recently moved from NBC), originally intended by its creator and host Dick Clark to be a modern and youthful alternative to Lombardos big band music. Including ABCs special coverage of the year 2000, Clark would host New Years Eve coverage on ABC for 33 straight years. After suffering a stroke, Clark ceded hosting duties in 2005 to talk show host Regis Philbin. Although Clark returned the following year, a speech impediment caused by the stroke forced him to retire as full-time host and cede duties to Ryan Seacrest; Clark continued to make desk appearances on the program annually until his death in 2012. New Years Eve is traditionally the busiest day of the year at Walt Disney World Resort in Florida and Disneyland in Anaheim, California, where the parks stay open late and the usual nightly fireworks show are supplemented by an additional New Years Eve-specific show at midnight.Los Angeles, a city long without a major public New Year celebration, held for the first time on December 31, 2013 a major gathering in Downtowns newly completed Grand Park. The event included food trucks, art installations, and various color and light shows, culminating with a massive light projection onto the side of Los Angeles City Hall which counted down to midnight with the crowd. The event drew over 25,000 spectators and participants, and is expected to rival other major cities festivities in years to come. Religious observancesIn the Roman Catholic Church, January 1 is a solemnity honoring the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of Jesus; it is a Holy Day of Obligation in most countries (Australia being a notable exception), thus the Church requires the attendance of all Catholics in such countries for Mass that day. However a vigil Mass may be held on the evening before a Holy Day; thus it has become customary to celebrate Mass on the evening of New Years Eve. (New Years Eve is a feast day honoring Pope Sylvester I in the Roman Catholic calendar, but it is not widely recognized in the United States.)Many Christian congregations have New Years Eve watchnight services. Some, especially Lutherans and Methodists and those in the African American community, have a tradition known as Watch Night, in which the faithful congregate in services continuing past midnight, giving thanks for the blessings of the outgoing year and praying for divine favor during the upcoming year. In the English-speaking world, Watch Night can be traced back to John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, who learned the custom from the Moravian Brethren who came to England in the 1730s. Moravian congregations still observe the Watch Night service on New Years Eve. Watch Night took on special significance to African Americans on New Years Eve 1862, as slaves anticipated the arrival of January 1, 1863, when Lincoln had announced he would sign the Emancipation Proclamation. ChinaIn China, although the celebrations of the Lunar New Year are not until a few weeks after the Gregorian New Year, celebrations of the Gregorian New Year are held in some areas, particularly in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Xiamen. Celebrations with fireworks and rock concerts have taken place in Beijings Solana Blue Harbor Shopping Park, while cultural shows and other events are held at the citys Millennium Monument, Temple of Heaven, Great Wall of China and the Summer Palace. Since 2011, a light and sound show has been held at The Bund in Shanghai, a few minutes before midnight.Hong KongIn Ho