Where To Celebrate New Year’s Eve 2024 In And Around Darien

DARIEN, CT — As 2024 comes to a close, residents are looking for ways to celebrate and ring in the new year.

There are several options in the Darien area for welcoming in 2025, from going out to a local restaurant to catching a comedy show in nearby Stamford.

Here are a few events happening in and around Darien:

• New Year's Eve at The Water's Edge at Giovanni's: Enjoy a complete dinner with New Year's celebrations and dessert. There will be a DJ and dancing as well.
• New Year's Eve at New York Comedy Club, Stamford: Start off your New Year's Eve 2025 with a fun-filled night of laughs, drinks and snacks in downtown Stamford. There are two shows on New Year's Eve, 8 p.m. and 10:30 p.m.
• New Year's Eve at Prime: An American Kitchen & Bar, Stamford: Enjoy a $175 four-course prix fixe dinner menu with all your favorite Prime seafood, sushi, and USDA Prime steak. A DJ will play late night from 10 p.m. to 1:30 a.m.
• New Year's Eve at Fortina, Stamford: Enjoy drink specials, live music until 8 p.m., a free party shot for the first 50 guests to secure a 9 p.m. or later reservation (21-plus), free champagne toast at midnight and complimentary cannolis. There will also be a raffle for a $200 gift card.
• New Year's Eve gala at L'Escale, Greenwich: Head to Greenwich for a gala at L'Escale. The menu is $285 per person and includes live music, dancing and a champagne toast at midnight.

Elsewhere in Connecticut, First Night Hartford returns with a family-friendly, alcohol-free New Year's Eve celebration that features fireworks, music, art, and food in the state's capital city.

In the United States, one of the most popular New Year’s Eve traditions is the dropping of the giant ball in New York City’s Times Square. Other U.S. cities have their own versions of this celebration, such as the Peeps Chick Drop in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and the giant Potato Drop in Boise, Idaho.

The transition from one year to the next is often marked by the singing of “Auld Lang Syne,” a Scottish folk song whose title roughly translates to “days gone by,” according to Encyclopedia Britannica and History.com.

The tradition of New Year’s resolutions dates back 8,000 years to ancient Babylonians, who made promises to return borrowed items and repay debts at the beginning of the new year, which was in mid-March when they planted their crops.

• Related: What New Year’s Resolution Did You Keep? How Did You Do It? [Patch Survey]

According to legend, if people kept their word, the pagan gods would grant them favor in the coming year. However, if they broke their promises, they would lose favor with the gods.

Many secular New Year’s resolutions focus on imagining new, improved versions of ourselves.

The failure rate of New Year’s resolutions is about 80 percent, according to U.S. News & World Report. There are many reasons, but a big one is they’re made out of remorse — for gaining weight, for example — and aren’t accompanied by a shift in attitude or a plan for coping with the stress and discomfort that comes with changing a habit or condition.