Today is the first day of the Gregorian solar calendar. January 1st 2023.

Although the vast majority of countries marks time according to this calendar, it’s not the only one.

Until the 1500s, the western world used another solar calendar to mark time – the Julian calendar. Some countries that follow the Orthodox Church still follow the Julian calendar for religious festivals.

The Orthodox New Year is still celebrated in places like Russia and Serbia as the ‘Old New Year’ as an informal family holiday. This corresponds to Jan 14th on the Gregorian Calendar.

And of course most Chinese celebrate the Chinese New Year more importantly than Dec 31/Jan 1 of the Gregorian calendar.

This is often mistakenly called the Lunar New Year.

The Chinese (and Vietnamese and Korean) calendar is actually a Lunisolar one.

This means that every few years, intercalary months are added to the lunar calendar to align with a solar cycle.

These years are called 闰年。

The Chinese New Year next year will be on 22 January 2023 by the Gregorian calendar.

Finally, the Muslims follow a pure Lunar Calendar. The Hijri calendar. The Islamic New Year is a long way away – the evening of 18 July 2023 on the new moon.

The point is that calendars are man-made ways to count time.

If for some reason, you don’t feel like celebrating the ‘New Year’, you don’t have to.

For hundreds of millions of people, it’s just another day.

If you are celebrating, then Happy ‘New’ Year.