Brief Photo Retrospective of Global New Year and Christmas Celebrations

Even though the exact date of this moment may differ from country to country - usually depending on what calendar is used – practically every nation around the globe celebrates the beginning of a new yearly cycle.

For some countries with Christian heritage, the celebration of New Year's Eve is also intrinsically linked with the celebration of Christmas, as the two holidays are only a week apart in the western tradition.

This gallery offers you an opportunity to take a look at how New Year and Christmas celebrations looked like in Europe, Asia and the Americas in the 20th century.

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Iranian New Year (Nowruz) celebration in the Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic. 1987.

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A Manchu businessman in Newchwang (now Yingkou) in Liaoning in the early republican period performing the Han Chinese ceremonies attending the eve of the Chinese New Year. After the ceremony for the Kitchen God, who spies on the household during the year for the Jade Emperor, he welcomes the God of Wealth Cai Shen to the courtyard of his home. After the ceremony, the doors of the compound are closed tightly to prevent the god's escape.

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New York. Blowing horns on Bleeker Street on New Year's Day.

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A boy holds a turkey his family is raising for the Christmas feast in Mexico City on Dec. 10, 1964.

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People dressed as Ded Moroz (Grandfather Frost) and Snegurochka (Snow Maiden) wish a girl a happy New Year. Moscow, 1985.

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Celebration of Tết, the Vietnamese Festival of the First Day of the Year, by Vietnamese students in the University of Warsaw.

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People gather on the Champs Elysees in Paris on January 1, 1970, to celebrate New Year.

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Burmese villagers display their traditional dances at a Christmas party for British troops in Burma on Feb. 4, 1945.

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Afghan children attend the celebrations of the first day of the New Year on March 21, 1989 at the amusement park, in Kabul.

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In the country districts of Romania it is the custom to herald in the New Year with fetes, in which traditional dances play an important part. Romanian country folk, wearing national dress, doing a country dance during the fete, on Jan. 1, 1937, to herald in the New Year.

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Japanese New Year's Eve custom: The traditionally dressed monks herald the passing of the Old Year (by counting down the last seconds with an hourglass) and the coming of the New Year by celebrating the young greenery of the bush in the middle. Japan, 1932.

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New Year celebration in Berlin. 1977.

CC BY-SA 3.0 / Hubert Link/German Federal Archives / Berlin, Neujahrsfest

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Representatives of civic groups beat a huge bell during a ceremony in celebration of New Year at the Boshin Tower in Seoul Thursday, Jan. 1, 1998. A debilitating financial crisis made most South Koreans feel they had little to celebrate.

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Tibetans in national costumes during New Year celebrations. 1938

CC BY-SA 3.0 / Ernst Schäfer/German Federal Archives / Tibetexpedition, Neujahrsfest Lhasa