Where To Celebrate New Year’s Eve 2023 In Falls Church: Watch Night, More

FALLS CHURCH, VA — New Year's Eve will be a busy one in Falls Church with the return of Watch Night Falls Church, one of the region's largest events to ring in 2024.

Watch Night Falls Church is a family-friendly New Year's Eve event culminating with the lowering of the historic star that dates back to 1948. The event will happen from 7 p.m. to midnight on Dec. 31 at Broad and Washington Streets in downtown Falls Church. Watch Night is organized by The Little City CATCH Foundation, City of Falls Church and civic, social, business and church groups and community volunteers. The event is free and open to the public.

Other festivities planned for Watch Night Falls Church are live music, food and children's amusements. Children's amusements like moon bounces, rock walls, spinning rides, karaoke and more will be located in Fun Alley (100 block of West Broad Street). The Falls Church Presbyterian Church (225 E. Broad Street) will host live music, dancing and children’s entertainment, while Falls Church Episcopal (115 E. Fairfax St.) will provide free tours and live music, including a performance by Indigo Boulevard.

The 100 block of W. Broad Street, including the intersection of Broad and Washington Streets, will be closed to vehicular traffic from 5 p.m. on Dec. 31 to 1 a.m. on Jan. 1. Free public parking will be available at The Falls Church Presbyterian Church, The Falls Church Episcopal, the Kaiser Permanente parking garage (201 N. Washington Street), and the George Mason Square parking garage (103 W. Broad St.). Street parking and public parking spaces also are available downtown, but visitors should be aware of signage about parking restrictions.

Here is a look at some additional events happening near Falls Church:

• New Year's Eve with the Legwarmers at State Theatre
• Seventh Annual Wilson Wonderland NYE Celebration
• New Year's Eve Masquerade Ball at Clarendon Ballroom
• DMV New Year's Eve Casino Night
• First Night Alexandria
• Big Night DC New Year's Eve Extravaganza at Gaylord National Harbor
• The Grandiose New Year's Eve Gala
• New Years Eve Party 2024 - Tysons Corner
• New Year's Eve Party - Cocktails Around The World
• Kids New Year's Eve at Shipgarten
• Noon Year's Eve in Vienna
• Noon Yards Eve at the Yards DC

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.

Virginia's twist on the ball drop includes events like Chincoteague Island's Pony Island Horseshoe Drop & Costume Promenade, Cape Charles's Dropping of the Crab Pot, Fincastle's New Year's Eve Bell Ringing and Portsmouth's Olde Towne Scottish Walk.

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.