NEW YEAR! NEW COUNTRY! By Kate Gostick
Time differences make parties last longer, allowing you to travel through time to celebrate the same time around the world all in one night. It’s the trick Santa uses to deliver all those gifts you know.
E
ven when traditions were the same in two countries we still managed to benefit from being an international family, as we celebrated in multiple time zones whilst existing at that moment in only one time and place. New Year’s Eve seemed to last all day as we celebrated English New Year with English friends and five hours later American New Year with American friends. Boston kindly put on a parade that culminated in fireworks at 7 pm, allowing American families with young children to all be in bed long before midnight. In the beginning, we wandered the streets looking at the ice sculptures all around the city and then followed the parade from Copley Square to the Common, enjoying the bands and performers, people on stilts, baton twirlers and floats and marchers from local groups. At 7 pm, English New Year, fireworks filled the sky over the 172
LANCASHIRE & NORTH WEST MAGAZINE
Common, bangs echoing off the skyscrapers and bright colours reflected in their glass. We hugged our friends and rang our families and then set off home. We had a quick sit down and a cup of tea and then set off to a friend’s house to bring in the American New Year with them, watching the ball drop in Time Square as we would have watched Big Ben chime twelve deep bongs at home. We then crossed arms much to the surprise of our American friends and sang a verse or two of Old Lang Syne, before the universal kisses and hugs. As the years progressed the parade and ice sculptures were replaced by a meal close to the Common on a table that stretched into the distance with British friends and their children. By now the Americans would cross hands as though this had been their tradition for generations and generations and then shake their arms vigorously up and down sharing the love around the circle. Germany had its own traditions some we would attempt to adopt and others we were glad to leave behind. We invited friends over to celebrate the New Year and watched Dinner for One, a British black and white movie, unknown to British audiences, but loved by Germans every New www.lancmag.com
