Where To Celebrate New Year’s Eve 2024 In The Guilford Area

GUILFORD, 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 Guilford area for welcoming in 2025.

Here are a few events happening in and around Guilford, both on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day:

• New Year's Day Guilford Rotary Frosty 5K: Celebrate the beginning of a New Year by participating in the annual Frosty 5K New Year's Day race hosted by the Guilford Rotary Club.
• New Year’s Day Open House - Medad Stone Tavern, Guilford: The event will run from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m.
• Holiday Giving Tree in Guilford: Spend the final day of 2024 by giving back. The Women & Family Life Center is accepting gift card donations for its holiday giving tree through Dec. 31.
• New Year's Eve celebration at The Wharf, Madison: The New Year's Eve menu will be available from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. The Wharf Bar will be open until midnight, Dec. 31. There will also be a New Year's Day brunch by the beach.
• New Year's Eve at WoodWinds, Branford: From 7 p.m. to 1 a.m., enjoy DJ entertainment with a full dance floor, party favors, premium open bar, specialty martini bar and a midnight champagne toast. Reservations required.

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.