Where To Celebrate New Year’s Eve 2023 In Fredericksburg

FREDERICKSBURG, VA — Fredericksburg is full of New Year's Eve traditions. Throughout the city, there are an array of events for every kind of reveler.

From masquerade balls to drag shows and chicken nugget bashes, there's something for everyone. Here's a list of some of the notable events around Fredericksburg:

• New Year's Eve Masquerade Party
  • 6 Bears & A Goat Brewing Company
  • Starts at 7 p.m.
• New Year's Eve Party
  • Billiken's Smokehouse
  • Starts at 8 p.m.
• Party Like It's 1989 New Year's Eve Bash
  • Reclaim Arcade
  • Starts at 9 p.m.
• FTE Presents: Wigs In Space (A New Year's Eve Celebration)
  • Stage Door Productions
  • Starts at 8 p.m.
• Return of the Nugget Bash
  • Game Garrison
  • Starts at 6 p.m.
• New Year's Eve Party with DJ Elle Jay
  • Curitiba Art Cafe
  • Starts at 9:30 p.m.
• New Year's Eve Intention Setting Workshop
  • YogaSix Fredericksburg
  • Starts at 2 p.m.
• '80s Themed NYE Party
  • Water's End Brewery
  • Starts at 8:30 p.m.

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.

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.