New Year's Day? It doesn't feel different from any other day.

[Lionel Mandrake]

Long long ago, according to Wikipedia, Romans celebrated New Years day on March 1, not January 1.

The calendar year originally began on 1 March, as is shown by the names of the six months following June (Quintilis = fifth month, Sextilis = sixth month, September = seventh month, etc.). It is not known when the start of the calendar year was changed to 1 January.

Read more:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_calendar#Years

The moral of the story is that New Years Day is completely arbitrary. January 1 is just a convention. You can take it or leave it.

[LiberalElite]

1. Agreed that it's arbitrary - but

The date the Romans picked had to do with when the consuls first entered office and as of around 153 B.C. that date changed to January 1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregorian_calendar#Beginning_of_the_year

[Lionel Mandrake]

2. It's interesting that the two Wikipedia articles disagree slightly.

According to the article on the Gregorian Calendar (which you cited), the new year began on "... probably 1 May before 222 BC, 15 March from 222 BC and 1 January from 153 BC". I would emphasize the word "probably". A lot of this is conjectural.