Where To Celebrate New Year’s Eve 2024 In Stonington

STONINGTON, CT — The new year is almost here, and there are plenty of ways to celebrate with family and friends in the Stonington area for New Year's Eve.

Here are all the events happening in the Stonington area on New Year's Eve:

• Foxwoods New Year's Eve
• Endless Midnight: New Year's Eve at Mohegan Sun
• New Year's Eve Bash with Wicked Peach at Hilton Mystic
• Kids Countdown to New Years with Steve Elci & Friends at the Mystic Seaport Museum
• New Year's Eve Murder Mystery Dinner at the Essex Steam Train & Riverboat
• New Year's Eve Bash with Wild Nights at The Barn in Groton
• New Year's Eve Celebration Dinner & Dance Party at the Water's Edge in Westbrook

Hosting a New Year's Eve event in Stonington? Be sure to post it on the Patch Calendar.

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.