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Article Features
Filipinos welcome New Year's Day with positive attitude, hope for peace and prosperity
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Dec 31, 2009 - 2:18:50 PM

MANILA, Dec. 31 (PNA Features) –- Millions of Filipinos celebrate New Year’s Day on Friday, January 1, like one big happy family with positive attitude and hope for peace and prosperity amid the trying times.

On New Year's Eve, many Filipino families hold reunions to further strengthen the bond that they share with loved ones and friends as they part with 2009 and welcome the New Year.

Monsignor Romulo Rañada of the Our Lady of the Annunciation Parish (OLAP) Church in Barangay Tandang Sora, Novaliches, Quezon City, said most Filipino families are expected to troop to Churches on Friday, which happens to be the First Friday of 2010.

Rañada said the family members will hear mass and offer prayers as a way of thanking God for the blessings they received in the past year and hope to receive in the New Year.

In the evening of the last day of the outgoing year, people usually light fireworks, loud firecrackers are heard, booming sound system reverberate in some neighborhood, bamboo canons are fired to produce a lot of noises, with the belief that such noises would scare evil spirits away and prevent them from bringing bad luck during the coming New Year.

Coins are also jumbled in tin cans, also to make noise with the belief that this will bring more money to the revelers.

Children are encouraged to jump about as there is an old belief that this would ensure good height for the kids.

Some people wear clothing with polka dots, the round figures symbolizing fertility and abundance (as in round fruits and coins).

Cockfighting enthusiast Rolando Luzong said the 2010 Chinese New Year begins on February 14, 2010 and will end on February 2, 2011.

On the modern Gregorian calendar, New Year's Day is celebrated on January 1, as it was also in ancient Rome (though other dates were also used in Rome).

In all countries using the Gregorian calendar as their main calendar, except for Israel, it is a public holiday, often celebrated with fireworks at the stroke of midnight as the New Year starts.

January 1 on the Julian calendar corresponds to January 14 on the Gregorian calendar, and it is on that date that followers of some of the Eastern Orthodox churches celebrate the New Year. (PNA Features)

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