Somerville Area New Year's Eve: Parties, Dancing, Bowling, Concerts

SOMERVILLE, MA — Whether you fancy a party with a DJ, bowling, a concert or a family event, Somerville and Cambridge have something for you this Saturday.

Somerville

Aeronaut Brewing, located at 14 Tyler St. in Somerville, will celebrate New Year's Eve with a party that will feature DJ Donuts. The food will be provided by Boston's Hungry Nomad and tickets will include a commemorative Aeronaut flute glass and a midnight pour of Glitter Beer. Tickets are available online.

You can dance the night away at the annual New Year's Eve Gala at Dance Union, 16 Bow St. in Somerville. DJ David Chester will be spinning tunes and dancing will last from 8 p.m. to 2 a.m., or later. Tickets can be purchased online.

The annual Rock & Bowl New Year's Eve event will take place at Somerville's Lucky Strike, 325 Revolution Dr. There will be a DJ, dancing, games, bowling and a balloon drop. There are general admission tickets, a bowling lane package, a billiards package, and a shuffleboard package.

The Crystal Ballroom, 55 Davis St. in Somerville, is hosting LesbianNightLife NYE Celebration. The event will feature a DJ, dancing, a ball drop, Champaign toast and confetti. There will be a 1920's speakeasy theme. Tickets are on sale using the new LesbianNightLife mobile app.

Ezekiel's Wheels Klezmer Band will perform at 7 p.m. on Saturday at The Burren, 247 Elm St. in Somerville. The band has been performing since 2009 and won awards at the International Jewish Music Festival and Boston Jewish Music Festival.

Cambridge

• End-of-year Celebration: This family event at Cambridge Library's O'Neill Branch, 70 Rindge Ave., will last from 3 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. and have games, music, treats and more.

• Ellis Paul: The singer-songwriter performs two shows at Club Passim, located at 47 Palmer St.
• Y2K NYE Bash: This aughts-themed New Year's Eve bash at Lamplighter Brewing, 284 Broadway, will feature late-90s and early-2000s throwback hits

Boston and Beyond

• First Night Boston: A day and night full of events around the city will feature live music and fireworks.
• Resolution Ball: Held at the Westin Hotel Copley Place, 10 Huntington Ave., the event bills itself as Boston's largest, longest-running and most glamorous New Year's Eve bash. There will be a full North End Italian-themed dinner and DJ Tommy from Club T will be spinning tunes.
• Frozen Fire Festival: The event at Charlotte Forten Park, 289 Derby St., features heated igloos, fire pits, two Olympic-style curling rinks, ice sculptures, live music and performances, as well as food trucks and an outdoor bar.

In the United States, one of the most popular New Year’s Eve traditions is, of course, the dropping of the giant ball in New York City’s Times Square. Various cities have adopted their own iterations of the event — the Peach Drop in Atlanta, the Chick Drop in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and the giant Potato Drop in Boise, Idaho.

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.