一系列有关新年、常被引用的名言：
Youth is when you're allowed to stay up late on New Year's Eve. Middle age is when you're forced to. ~Bill Vaughn
An optimist stays up until midnight to see the new year in. A pessimist stays up to make sure the old year leaves. ~Bill Vaughan
Many people look forward to the new year for a new start on old habits. ~Author Unknown
A New Year's resolution is something that goes in one year and out the other. ~Author Unknown
Be always at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let each new year find you a better man. ~Benjamin Franklin
No one ever regarded the First of January with indifference. It is that from which all date their time, and count upon what is left. It is the nativity of our common Adam. ~Charles Lamb
New Year's Day is every man's birthday. ~Charles Lamb
Never tell your resolution beforehand, or it's twice as onerous a duty. ~John Selden
Year's end is neither an end nor a beginning but a going on, with all the wisdom that experience can instill in us. ~Hal Borland
The merry year is born
Like the bright berry from the naked thorn.
~Hartley Coleridge
New Year's eve is like every other night; there is no pause in the march of the universe, no breathless moment of silence among created things that the passage of another twelve months may be noted; and yet no man has quite the same thoughts this evening that come with the coming of darkness on other nights. ~Hamilton Wright Mabie
The Old Year has gone. Let the dead past bury its own dead. The New Year has taken possession of the clock of time. All hail the duties and possibilities of the coming twelve months! ~Edward Payson Powell
Cheers to a new year and another chance for us to get it right. ~Oprah Winfrey
Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.
~Alfred, Lord Tennyson, 1850
The proper behavior all through the holiday season is to be drunk. This drunkenness culminates on New Year's Eve, when you get so drunk you kiss the person you're married to. ~P.J. O'Rourke
Every man should be born again on the first day of January. Start with a fresh page. Take up one hole more in the buckle if necessary, or let down one, according to circumstances; but on the first of January let every man gird himself once more, with his face to the front, and take no interest in the things that were and are past. ~Henry Ward Beecher
New Year's Day: Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual. ~Mark Twain
新年常唱的歌曲：Auld Lang Syne
This famous poem by Robert Burns is quite popular in New Year parties :
Should auld acquaintance be forgot
And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And auld lang syne?
Chorus
For auld lang syne, my jo,
For auld lang syne,
We'll tak a cup o' kindness yet,
For auld lang syne. (全部歌词见下面链接）
其他国家过年的习俗:
New Year's traditions are similar, but some are different. Here are some interesting customs, past and present, around the world.
Australian: New Year's is celebrated on January 1. This is a public holiday and many people spend it having picnics and camping on the beach. Their parties start on December 31. At midnight they start to make noise with whistles, rattles, car horns, and church bells to ring in the New Year.
Austria: New Year's Eve is called Sylverterabend, which is the Eve of Saint Sylvester. they make a spiced punch in honor of the saint. Decorations and champagne are part of the celebration. Evil spirits of the old year are chased away by the firing of moroars, called boller. Midnight mass is attended and trumpets are blown from church towers at midnight, when people kiss each other.
Belgian: New Year's Eve is called Sint Sylvester Vooranvond, or Saint Sylvester Eve. People throw parties and at midnight everyone kisses and exchanges good luck greetings. New Year's Day is call Nieuwjaarrsdag. children write letters on decorated paper to their parents and god parents, and read the letter to them.
Great Britain: the custom of first footing is practiced. the first male visitor to the house, after midnight ,is supposed to bring good luck. The man brings a gift like money, bread, or coal, to ensure the family will have plenty of these in the year to come. The first person must not be blond, red-haired, or a women, as these are supposed to be bad luck. In London, crowds gather in Trafalgar Square and Piccadilly circus to hear the chimes of London's big Ben as it announces the arrival of the New Year.
France: The French New Year is Jour des Etrennes, or Day of New Year's Presents. Dinner parties are thrown for the entire family, where presents are exchanged.
Germany: People drop molten lead into cold water to tell the future from the shape it makes. A bit of food eaten on New Year's Eve is left on their plate until after Midnight, as a way on ensuring a well stocked larder in the coming year..
参考资料：http://www.indobase.com/holidays/new-year/new-year-poems/auld-lang-syne.html