Who Does Not Celebrate New Year: Calendars, Confessions, and Cultural Choice The perception of New Year as a universal holiday is a widespread misconception. Refusing or not celebrating January 1st is not an anomaly, but a result of deep religious, cultural, historical, or ideological reasons. Groups that do not mark this day can be classified by several key characteristics: religious aversion, adherence to an alternative calendar, conscious protest, or social marginalization. 1. Religious Communities Rejecting the Celebration for Dogmatic Reasons For many denominations, the secular New Year (especially with its pagan and Soviet attributes) contradicts the foundations of their faith. Jehovah's Witnesses: The most well-known example. They do not celebrate New Year, like other secular and many religious holidays (Christmas, Easter, birthdays). Their position is based on the belief that these holidays have pagan roots and do not conform to biblical principles. They refer to the absence of mention of New Year celebrations in the Bible and its association with cults dedicated to Janus (in Rome) or other deities. Some conservative Protestant denominations: Individual fundamentalist communities (some Baptists, Pentecostals) may also refrain from celebrating, considering it "worldly" and distracting from spiritual life. They emphasize the "un-Christian" nature of the festivities. Part of the Old Believers and extremely conservative Orthodox: For them, the modern holiday with a Christmas tree (historically a Protestant custom), Santa Claus (a Soviet adaptation), and noisy banquets is a foreign "worldly" act. They live by the church calendar, where the main cycle is liturgical, and the secular date of January 1st has no sacred significance. Strict Muslims (Salafis, Wahhabis): The Islamic calendar is lunar, and New Year (Raas as-Sanah al-Hijri) occurs at a different time. Celebrating January 1st, especially with attributes like a Christmas tree, champagne, and festivit ... Read more