New Year’s Eve 2023 Near Oswego: Pickleball Party, Pizza-Filled Night

OSWEGO, IL — As Oswego residents gear up with resolutions and goals for 2024, several businesses are preparing for New Year's Eve festivities.

From Prohibition Era-style parties to bowling fun, there's no shortage of memorable events happening in and around Oswego this New Year's Eve.

Here is a look at what's planned:

• "Noon Year" party by Oswegoland Park District at Boulder Point, 0 Boulder Hill Pass in Montgomery
• NYE bowling parties at Pinz, 1211 N. Bridge St. in Yorkville
• Kids New Year's Eve party at Craft'd, 2075 Marketview Drive in Yorkville
• Pickleball party at Sure Shot Pickleball in Naperville
• Prohibition party at Sable Creek Winery, 14912 Eastern Ave. in Plainfield
• Music and dancing at The Farmhouse, 12729 Naperville Road in Plainfield
• New Year's Eve red carpet event at The Forge, 22 W. Cass St. in Joliet

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.

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.