New Year
New Year is a holiday celebrated by billions of people around the globe. This is probably one of the few holidays that exist in some form in any country irrespective of its geographical position, culture, religion or political system. But even though almost all humans celebrate it, it cannot unite them in every sense of this word, as the New Year for different nations begins on different dates and even in different seasons. Of course, the majority of European and American and other countries use the Gregorian calendar as their official calendar, which increases the number of people for whom the 1 of January is officially the first day of the Year. For some countries, for instance the post-soviet ones, this day is considered as a national holiday and is celebrated with as many festivities and ceremonies as Christmas is celebrated in the Western countries. This is caused by the fact that the communist propaganda spent years suppressing the religious views and traditions of millions of people and spread the idea of the well-known "scientific atheism" among them. That's why many traditions and observations initially connected with Christmas were gradually transferred to the celebration of the New Year (Santa Claus, Christmas tree, presents etc).
Although many of us may think that the New Year is celebrated on the 1st of January all around the world, this is not quite so. Despite the fact that the Gregorian calendar is the official calendar adopted by many countries, the first day of the New Year may vary greatly in different areas.