Where To Celebrate New Year’s Eve 2022 Around Seattle

SEATTLE — New Year's Eve celebrations are planned across Western Washington to ring in 2023, including a expanded fireworks display and drone light display at Seattle's Space Needle. There will be no shortage of events on the Eastside and elsewhere, either.

Here are a few events happening around the greater Seattle area to get started:

• New Year's at the Needle (Seattle)
  • T-Mobile is sponsoring the fireworks spectacular for the 10th year running, and this year's festivities will welcome revelers back to the Seattle Center campus and adds a coordinated drone display.
• Xtreme Theatresports New Year's Eve Party (Seattle)
  • Seattle's Unexpected Productions will host a special edition of their theatresports improv show near the gum wall, featuring 20 performers across competing on four teams.
• The Bellevue Collection
  • On the Eastside, several restaurants and venues have big plans for the holiday, including a midnight champagne toast at STK Steakhouse and a late night dance party at the W.
• Fireball NYE 2023 (Tacoma)
  • Counting down to midnight with two dance floors and drink specials at Steel Creek in Tacoma.

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.