I can't get particularly worked up about New Year any year and the "Millenium" was no exception - the year 2000 wasn't "the millennium" for a start - as there was no year zero, the 1000 - year cycle ended on December 31st 2000, not 1999, and the calendar is purely arbitrary anyway - decided by the church at any given time, and they kicked off 5 or 6 years out right at the start, chopped out 12 days in one chunk in 1752 and have switched New Year's Day several times! So when "the New Millennium" REALLY started is anybody's guess! As I see it, January 1st 2000 was the day that the odometer rolled over and nothing else! Anyway, as it's all behind us now, and nothing the prophets of doom warned usa about actually happened (remember the "Millenium Bug" they said would wreck all our computers, microwaves, TVs, etc.?) so once again New Year is back to being just that - the start of another new year!

BUT, that said, most Brits will be using it as an excuse to go out with friends and eat and drink far too much! In London they gather in Trafalgar Square much as they do in Times Square and wait for the stroke of midnight from Big Ben: it's usually a pretty good-humoured if noisy crowd.

Having had my two-penn'orth, I will get back to the business in hand :

THE ORIGINS OF THE FESTIVAL:
As its name implies, New Year's Day is just that - the start of a new year (with New Year's Eve being the night before.) The actual date on which New Year's Day is celebrated has moved several times over the centuries. The Romans began their year in March, at the beginning of Spring - the start of the farmer's year and the beginning of the cycle of life. Then, for some reason or other, they switched to January 1st in 153BC. (The god Janus was depicted as having two faces - one looking forward into the new year and the other looking back into the old.)

Later, most of mediaeval Europe celebrated New Year on March 25th, along with the Spring Equinox - apart, that is, from good old Anglo-Saxon England: WE celebrated New Year on December 25th, along with Christmas! It took William the Conqueror to change it, but we still had to be different - we soon went back to the old Roman date of January 1st! Eventually we did come into line with the rest of Europe and celebrated New Year on March 25th until in 1582 Pope Gregory ordered the adoption of the Gregorian calendar and moved New Year back to January 1st again, where it has stayed ever since. Of course, the change to the Julian calendar in 1752 meant that January 12th became January 1st.......

NEW YEAR TRADITIONS AND CUSTOMS:
There are still a few old New Year traditions that persist here in the north of England (we aren't all that far from Scotland, where they take the whole thing - Hogmanay - MUCH more seriously.)

The main New Year custom is the tradition of "First-Footing" - the first person to enter the house after midnight should be a tall, dark stranger. (Difficult here, in a small east-coast village where a) most people are fair or even blonde due to our Viking and Saxon heritage and b) there ARE no strangers!)
This "first-footer" must bring with him (must be a "him") a lump of coal, some bread and a handful of salt, to ensure prosperity in the household for the coming year. The tradition is gradually dying out but we still do occasionally get "first-footers" going from door to door with the requisite coal, bread and salt, and the traditional greeting "Lang may your lum reek" (Long may your chimney smoke - an invocation to keep the fire in the hearth burning and therefore the house warm and cosy, rather obsolete in this age of central heating!), getting a drink at each house and getting steadily more sozzled as they go on their way!

My husband is Welsh and comes from Pembrokeshire; there in the remote Gwaun Valley they still celebrate Christmas and New Year (Nos Galan) under the Old Style (Julian) Calendar on January 6th and 12th. As they also celebrate on the modern dates too, there is some serious partying going on there for several days!

Even further north, in the Shetland islands, the New Year is welcomed in very dramatically with the ceremony of "Up-Helly-Aa" which has its roots in Viking ceremonies. The locals (most of them dressed up as Vikings) parade round the main town of Lerwick with burning torches - it never gets fully daylight in midwinter in such high latitudes - and end with the ceremonious launching of a burning Viking ship and bonfires and much general partying. Although this is an "end-of-year" celebration, it actually takes place on the last Tuesday in January, the celebration of 2009 is on January 27th.