Watch Night Falls Church Returns In 2022, Other New Year's Eve Events

FALLS CHURCH, VA — After cancellations over the last two years, Watch Night Falls Church will make a triumphant return to ring in 2023.

Watch Night is a family-friendly event with entertainment for all ages. The event started in 1998 residents pushed for more downtown events. The event gives Falls Church its own unique countdown to midnight. The Historic Star, which is the city's first holiday decoration from 1948, is lowered each year at midnight.

Due to rain in the forecast, Watch Night will have indoor activities only on Dec. 31. The 100 block of W. Broad Street closure will not happen.

A shuttle bus from the East Falls Church Metro will not be provided in 2022. However, Metro will be fare free after 8 p.m. on New Year's Eve to closing. Metro has extended hours to 2 a.m. on Jan. 1.

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

• The Legwarmers New Year's Eve Dance Party at State Theatre
• New Year's Eve at JV's Restaurant
• Wilson Wonderland New Year's Eve
• New Year's Masquerade Party
• A New Year's Eve Maggiano's Murder Mystery Dinner Event
• New Years Eve Party at Greenhouse Bistro
• Grandiose New Year's Eve Gala
• First Night Alexandria

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.