January 1 — New Year’s Day Writing Prompt
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Sometimes writing doesn’t come easy. We need prompting. You don’t have to be a professional writer. Even a middle-grade student can use a writing prompt. They are useful and fun.
What Are Writing Prompts?
Writing prompts are simply ideas, phrases, or words that help prompt a story to come to you. It can come as a picture, a phrase, or just a few words. Anything can be inspiring.
In this case, I’m using a holiday as a writing prompt. Sometimes, we think we know all there is know about a holiday. The truth is that most of the time we know very little.
This is all about New Year’s Day. Read the history and traditions surrounding the day and see what story ideas come to mind.
History
There just might not be any civilization that has not rung in a new year in some form or fashion. It made sense as each culture saw the cycles of their lives going by. So, they each choose something that was important to them and used it to mark the start of the new year for them. For the Egyptians it was the movement of the Nile River. Others used the moon and seasons. They all knew everything was starting over.
It was the Roman Empire that narrowed down the more well-known New Year’s date of January 1st. Since the month of January was named after the god, Janus, who was the god of new beginnings, it made sense to make the first day of that month the new year. As the Empire was so large and impacted a vast percentage of the world, one can see why January 1st is recognized as New Year’s Day by so many.
In text box: Pope Gregory XII (?) pulled all of Christendom together by proclaiming January 1st as the first day of the year instead of the significant Christian holidays celebrated.
Cultures
Most of the Western world looks at January 1st as the first day of each new year. Though the most common date used due to the business world existing on the Gregorian Calendar, there are many other cultures that celebrate it within their ethnic groups on different days.
