How did you celebrate the coming of the new year last night?  Another way I could ask that question is: “How did you ring in the new year?”  The expression “to ring in” the new year is a modern expression with an old origin.  This expression is connected to the aged custom to ring the town church bells at midnight each year to mark the end of the previous year and the beginning of the new year.  There is an old poem in English from the 1800’s that refers to this custom in the following lines:

“Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow”

Although there are no bells in Time Square in New York City, last night over a million people gathered together to ring in 2012 with the dropping of a large crystal and electric ball.  An estimated 100 million other American watched this event on television and perhaps you were one of the billion people around the world who saw the Times Square Ball Drop broadcast*!  The countdown to the new year and the dropping of the Time Square Ball is now one of the most iconic** celebrations of New Year’s Eve around the world. The tradition of lowering a lit ball to count down to the new year started in Time Square in 1907 and has continued in Time Square every year since then.  Now lowering a ball (or other object) to count down the new years is performed in cities around the United States.  This way of celebrating the new year has become so common, just like ringing bells to celebrate the new year was in the past, that perhaps some day we may have a new expression that asks: “How did you drop in the new years?”  We don’t say that yet though!  Now it is still best to say: “How did you ring in the new year?” or “How did you celebrate the new year?” when asking someone about how they spent their time celebrating New Year’s Eve.

*the transmission of a radio or television program to the public
**to be a famous symbol