New Year's Eve 2022 Parties, Events Around Kingstowne

KINGSTOWNE, VA — The new year is just around the corner. In the Kingstowne and Fairfax County areas, there's an array of events for people looking to ring in 2023.

We've rounded up some event options around McLean and New Year's Eve television programming. Let us know in the comments if we missed anything. We will update this guide up to New Year's Eve.

Here is a look at some additional events happening in the Kingstowne area:

• The St. James New Year's Eve Sneaker Ball Benefiting Martha's Table: Celebrate like an all-star with an epic gala to ring in the new year! The inaugural Sneaker Ball holiday bash will feature hip-hop legends Doug E. Fresh and Slick Rick headlining along with a flurry of festivities: open bar, champagne toast, giveaways, party favors, and hotel/rideshare discounts so you can count down 2022’s clock in style. The St. James, 6805 Industrial Road, Springfield.
• No. 9 Lounge's New Years Eve 2022 Bash: 2000 Mt Vernon Ave., Alexandria.
• New Year's Eve Cocktail Party at The Light Horse: 715 King Street, Alexandria.
• The Seldom Scene, Eastman String Band, & Wicked Sycamore at The Birchmere: 3701 Mount Vernon Avenue, Alexandria.
• Toast to the New Year at Capital Wheel in National Harbor: National Harbor, Maryland.
• CNN’s New Year’s Eve Live: Hosts Andy Cohen and Anderson Cooper from New York City's Times Square at 8 p.m. on CNN.
• Miley’s New Year’s Eve Party: Hosts Miley Cyrus and Dolly Parton, 10:30 p.m. on NBC.
• Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve With Ryan Seacrest: Ryan Seacrest with co-hosts Liza Koshy, Jessie James Decker, Ciara, D-Nice, Billy Porter at 8 p.m. on ABC.

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.