New Year's Eve 2005 was much like any other New Years holiday in most of the fundamental ways.  Although every New Years party is somewhat unique, there are things about every New Years party that are the same.  Part of the joy of nearly every New Years party is observing the rituals that tie every New Years party together through the ages.  As much as each and every New Years party is primarily about celebrating and noting the change from one calendar year to the next, every New Years party is also about creating continuity through the years.

By observing some of the same rituals at every celebratory New Years party meant to mark the holiday of New Years as more special than any other day of the calendar, we as a society find a way to bring ourselves closer to the past and to the future, and to many other generations of revelers who have observed a past New Years.  For instance, champagne corks are popped at midnight at almost every New Years party held in the western world.  The tradition of popping corks at midnight at a New Years party has been going on for over a hundred years.  By participating in this long-standing ritual at a modern celebratory New Years party, we announce to the world that although things change very much from year to year, many things also stay the same.  While a New Years party looks towards the future, a New Years party also looks to the past.

Throwing a New Years party is different now than it used to be.  Formal embossed invitations sent through the post have been widely replaced by email invitations that we receive on our computers and cellular phones, technological gadgets that revelers at a New Years party hundreds of years ago could never have dreamed would exist.  The event of New Years Eve is a great time to take stock of what has changed in the past year, and as technology becomes more and more advanced each year brings us more and more astonishing new innovations in everything arena of life.  In the past decade, many things have changed because of technological innovations, and everything from how we listen to our favorite music to how our cars protect us during a crash has changed a lot, and continues to change every year.  New Years Eve is a great time to look back on the changes that have occurred since the start of the year.  When we take the time to think about where we have come from, we will surely see that there is plenty to celebrate.

But, despite the advances of the modern age, a party that celebrated the New Year's Eve 2005 brought shared the same lively atmosphere as every celebratory New Years party has had for hundreds of years.  Throwing a New Years eve party means taking part in traditions that have proven their ability to endure despite the changing landscape of modern living.  No matter what kind of technological innovations the future may hold for humankind, it is hard to believe that we as a species will ever stop throwing parties to celebrate the end of one year and the beginning of the next.  Throwing New Years celebrations and events that mark the start of the new calendar year is almost guaranteed to endure for the foreseeable future, and it would require some very powerful changes in the social fabric to eradicate this long standing tradition.