Where To Celebrate New Year's Eve 2023 In Swampscott

SWAMPSCOTT, MA — Whether you are someone who likes to head out to celebrate on New Year's Eve or stay home and watch the festivities on television it's getting to be about that time to start planning in Swampscott.

First Night Swampscott will be held at Swampscott High School starting at 1 p.m. with a 3 Ring Creations Comedy Show at 1:30 p.m. The Curious Creatures Show will run from 2:45 to 3:40 p.m. There will be a photo booth, face painting and New Year's Eve Crafts in the Cafeteria from 1 p.m. to 3:45 p.m. A countdown and balloon drop from the second floor will take place at 3:45 p.m.

A unique spectacle of fire, ice and winter fun is returning to Salem that whole week as the Frozen Fire Festival comes to the Witch City for the second year. The event at Charlotte Forten Park opens on Dec. 26 and runs through Jan. 1 — including New Year's Eve night. The Anthem Group is bringing back the festival, which includes flaming-arrow exhibitions, cirque performers, live ice sculpting, fire pits, heated igloos, food trucks, a S'mores and Hot Chocolate Garden, bbq smokehouse, and The Polar Bar, featuring local and international craft beer, wine and specialty drinks.

The Cabot Theater will host New Year's Eve with Club d'ELF featuring John Medeski, Jennifer Hartswick and Natalie Cressman. Doors are at 7 p.m. with the event beginning at 8 p.m. Tickets are available here.

In the Game in Peabody will be hosting a Retro Disco Night that is child-friendly. Tickets are available here.

One of the biggest parties on the North Shore annually is the Hoppin' New Year's Eve event at the
Doubletree Hilton Danvers on Ferncroft Road. This will be the eighth year of the event which includes a buffet dinner, comedy, live music, a photo booth, glow sticks and bracelets, as well as a big screen with live video during the night and a champagne toast at midnight. This year's event includes dual comedy headliners Christine Hurley and Harrison Stebbins. Tickets are available here.

Local businesses, restaurants and bars will be having their own countdowns and champagne toasts. Patch is looking to create a list of where to hang out in the final hours, minutes or seconds of 2023.

If you own or work at a bar, or restaurant or for another event taking place on Dec. 31 email the details to [email protected] for inclusion in updated versions of this story leading up to the big night.

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 the 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.