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1 January: what is celebrated today
The world wakes up with a promise. Every 1 January, the calendar gives us a blank page, a deep breath before the first step. It is the day when time seems to renew itself, and with it, affections, words and ideas. It is no coincidence that three celebrations converging on this day each speak, in their own way, of beginnings: New Year’s Day, International Children’s Day and Public Domain Day. To be born, to create, to inherit—three verbs that summarise the essence of the first day of the year.
New Year’s Day: the art of starting again
For more than two millennia, 1 January has symbolised a universal rite: saying farewell to the old, welcoming the new. The Romans dedicated this month to the god Janus, guardian of doors and beginnings, whose two faces looked towards the past and the future. Even today we continue to invoke that double gaze: one that remembers and another that dreams.
In every culture, the dawn of the year takes a different form. In Japan, bells toll 108 times to purify the soul; in Brazil, bodies dressed in white jump over the waves; in Italy, old objects are thrown out of the window, as though the noise scared away sorrows. And regardless of language or rite, the wish is the same: to begin free of fear, lightened of guilt, open to possibility.
There is something deeply human about that midnight moment: raised glasses, the twelve grapes, the noise of fireworks that seem to want to wake the sky. New Year is not only a date, but a living metaphor for rebirth. An invitation to write one’s personal story anew.
International Son Day: the bonds that return us to our origins
While the world celebrates the arrival of a new cycle, International Son Day reminds us of the other beginning — that of life itself. This day, promoted by the Catholic Church, proposes something as simple and necessary as looking at children with gratitude and tenderness, without gifts or protocols, only with time and listening.
Fatherhood and motherhood are not only biological functions: they are a language learned every day. On this 1 January, after the bustle of the festivities, many families find a moment to reconnect, to restore that silent conversation which joins generations.
Studies say that childhood emotional memories strengthen emotional stability in adult life. But beyond the data, there is an invisible truth: the love shared between parents and children is the first mirror in which we learn who we are. Celebrating this day is, at heart, celebrating the root of all that we will become.
Public Domain Day: when ideas are set free
And while families toast and calendars are renewed, the world of culture also celebrates its own rebirth. Every 1 January, thousands of literary, musical and artistic works enter the public domain: a borderless territory where imagination once again becomes common heritage.
Thanks to this principle, books, films, scores and poems cease to belong to a signature and belong to the world again. It is as though authors, after the passage of time, handed their creations to new generations of dreamers. The spirit of the Berne Convention —signed in 1886 to protect artists— finds its counterpart here: also protecting humanity’s right to draw inspiration, reinterpret and create.
Celebrating Public Domain Day is celebrating collective memory. It is honouring those who wrote before us and being grateful that their voice remains alive, transformed, in our readings, songs and works. Because culture, like time, is renewed only when it is shared.