Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!!   2014

New Year's Day was a holiday for exchanging gifts and entertaining long before the custom became associated with Christmas.  From the 1840s until just before the turn of the century, New Year's Day was the visiting day for men and the receiving day for the ladies.  It was a gala time when everyone held open houses with enormous buffet feasts complete with table decorations.  All the ladies carried nosegays and tables were decorated in a lavish style to match the food with epergnes flowing with flowers.  Garlands and wreaths would be positioned decoratively throughout the "visiting room."

One writer from New York City noted the growing importance of New Year's Day to the florist:

     "Our sales of flowers for New Year's Day in 1844 amounted to hardly $200; and probably for the whole City of New York it did not exceed $1000.  Now it would probably be no exaggeration to say that New York pays $50,000 for its flowers for decoration on that day."  --Henderson Horticultural Progress, 1880.

After the turn of the century, New Year's Day was still a holiday but not as prominent a floral holiday after visiting day customs waned.  Today florists sell flowers for New Year's Day celebrations as they would any holiday party.

Tournament of Roses Parade  Flowers play an important part for one major celebration on New Year's Day--the Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena, California.  The first parade took place on January 1, 1886.  The members of the Valley Hunt Club, including Charles F. Hunt, the originator of the parade idea and founder of the club, decorated their carriages and buggies with real flowers and drove them through the street on their way to all the sporting events that day.  More than one hundred years later, this parade is still a remarkable floral occasion.