Where To Celebrate New Year’s Eve 2023 In Glen Ellyn, Wheaton

GLEN ELLYN, IL — Glen Ellyn and Wheaton revelers will have plenty of options when it comes to ringing in 2024, whether it's an all-out bash at an event venue in the village or a themed night at a local haunt.

Here is a look at some events happening in Glen Ellyn and Wheaton:

• New Year's Eve at the Abbington
• New Year's Eve Concert at McAninch Arts Center
• New Year's Menu at Arrowhead Golf Club

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 adopted iterations of the ball drop — the Chick Drop in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and the giant Potato Drop in Boise, Idaho, for example.

Illinois's twist on the ball drop is the annual fireworks show at Navy Pier in Chicago.

The end of one year and beginning of another is often celebrated with 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 history of New Year’s resolutions dates back 8,000 years to ancient Babylonians, who would make promises to return borrowed objects and pay outstanding debts at the beginning of the new year, in mid-March when they planted their crops.

According to legend, if they kept their word, pagan gods would grant them favor in the coming year. If they broke the promise, they would fall out of God’s favor, according to a history of New Year’s resolutions compiled by North Hampton Community College New Center in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

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 myriad 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 and a plan to meet the stress and discomfort of changing a habit or condition.