New Year Across the Garden

When do the cultures celebrate the new year in your world? What does it involve?
Each of the eleven civilizations in the Mother's Garden has a different tradition for marking the New Year. Not just when it should be celebrated and how it should be celebrated, but how it is determined that a new year has started at all.

The Shining City

The Cult of Light in the Shining City don't consider it a holiday, per se. They don't really have holidays. They do, however, mark the new year ritualistically- it's one of precious few rituals they recognize.
They mark the new year on the longest, darkest night of the year, for thematic reasons. If there is a moon of any kind on the winter solstice, the "priests" will wait until after moonset to call the citizenry to bear witness. They will darken many lights and give firey speeches about how all creation rejected humanity. How their strength spits in the faces of the gods. How it doesn't matter that even the stars deserted them [at this point they direct the assembly to look up- even with darkened lights, the City's overall light pollution would drown out the stars, and the sky would be a blank gray slate], for they will be their own light in the darkness!
At this point, a brilliant light show begins, flooding the space and blinding the audience as much as it delights them. This uplifts the citizenry, filling them with a sense of group strength and purpose. There are many cheers, and lovers often kiss for good luck during the lights.
As a sign of goodwill, the Lords call off work and school the day after this event.

The Lupine Clans

The wolves qualify the new year as starting on the first full moon of Spring, as determined by their priests.
This is, for them, a celebratory time- it is the end of the Starving Time of winter. Hunting is much better and the cabin fever of being holed up in winter camp is about to be alleviated.
A large feast is held out in the open air, under the moonlight. If a large, male (important to let the mothers calve in peace) animal can be brought down, it is roasted and shared among everyone. Foraged vegetables are a staple regardless of what meat is available. Children are allowed to stay up until moonset, and songs are sung to chase away the cobwebs of winter with laughter.
At dawn, camp is broken, and the Wolves begin a new nomadic year.

The Aviary

For the Avians, the new year is celebrated on the winter solstice. The Song takes on a special tone during this night, and they recognize it as the turning point past which days get longer again.
Like most of their festivals, it is largely a musical affair with quite a lot of dancing and song, with the feast aspect secondary. Everyone who is able literally dances the night away, and all hold the message that the dark and cold won't last close to their hearts. It is very much a torch that makes the rest of winter bearable before the coming of spring.

The Ursine Mountains

Because the Bear Clans hibernate through the winter, when the New Year falls is a matter of some debate. The Council keeps track of the days throughout the winter, to be sure that they know when it is good to go and forage in the forests again, but since all bears have a different sleeping rhythm, they will all waken for spring at different times. A few weeks before the spring equinox, most everyone is awake and the Council has deemed it alright to go in search of fresh food. They have a chance to get everything running as normal. Then on the vernal equinox, the public gates to the mountains open again, with a mass celebration.
A parade goes through the streets, banging pans and ringing bells, making a proper racket. Though almost nobody is still asleep, this is a ritual wakening for the whole civilization. At last the doors are thrown open, and the first visitors since winter began flood into the city. Goods to welcome back tourists and traders are in high demand: smelling salts and cleaning tools with bear motifs are thematic; small jewelry pieces and dried flower crowns are also easy sells ("a festival souvenir for the missus sir, a shame she couldn't be here today!").
Those who don't know any bears or understand their winter habits assume this is when all bears wake up. This misconception is laughable to bears at best, somewhat racist at worst.

The Ungul Alliance

The Equine tribe and the Harts have merged and blended their traditions under the banner of the Alliance. They recognize the new year with the beginning of Spring.
Spring itself is declared by the Equines. As winter draws to a close, spring shoots cover the spent winter fields. Youths venture further afield to graze, and keep on the lookout for a flower called Dawn's Flame. The first person to find it and return it (at a screaming gallop) to the camp is honored as the Herald of Spring for their community. They are treated as a guest of honor for the feast and are awarded a crown of flowers, which most preserve and keep as a treasure the rest of their lives.
A messenger is then sent to the capitol, to announce the new year to the Horned King. The King in turn sends messengers to the other Equine camps to let them know that spring has come. Each of these other communities still honors their local Herald when a Dawn's Flame is found, but from this point it is considered a new year across the Alliance.
The King invites the first Herald to court to honor them and bestow upon them a gift. Traditionally, the Herald is allowed to ask for a boon, though in years of hardship the King may grant a set physical gift instead. Gifts are also sent to the other Equine camps as a sign of goodwill from the King. These vary from king to king and year to year, but are typically things which the entire community can benefit from. Examples include fodder to weather the next winter, planting a fruit tree within the tribe's territory (most have organized an orchard), or a visit from a royal physician to check in on the residents and their horses.
The gifts to the Equine camps comes from a longstanding tradition of gifts to the Hart citizenry. As the population has grown, the opulence of these gifts has, needfully, diminished. In the current time, it is common for the King to gift each family with a simple cake and an address from the palace to wish everyone a happy new year.
Finally, there is a ritual Blessing of the Fawns. All families who have had a child in the past year are invited to a group audience with the king. The head priest and king then pray for the children to be blessed by the Stag (or Mare, in the case of Equine children attendees) and adorn each with flowers. If a child is born with an evident disability, it is at this time that the Royal Treasurer takes note of the family so that they may gain a small allowance from the Crown toward their care.
This, itself, is a tradition started by King Agamani, whose second son was born with severe spina bifuda. The king spent enormous sums to keep his son alive as long as he could, and though he died young, King Agamani was known to say that every moment was more precious than all the money in the treasury. While in mourning, he realized that many families suffered this same struggle, but did not have nearly as much means to care for their frailest children. Thus he arranged for a fund to be available to these families, and that they would never need to ask or feel shame about the hand that fate had dealt them.

The Catlands

Cats have a similar new year ritual structure to Equines, leading some scholars to believe they shared a parent culture in the distant past.
Instead of a flower, cats hunt Warmwing Snipes, which stay the winter on the Shining Isle and in the Viperfang Bog. The birds must be captured and brought back to the camp alive. This task is difficult enough that any young person who accomplishes it before being Blooded can skip their Hunting Trial entirely (though they will still have to wait until the proper age to be considered an adult). Most often the bird is retrieved by a veteran hunter, who then tries to explain to young ones how it was done.
A feast is held to celebrate the coming of spring, with the snipe as the guest of honor as the Herald of Spring. At dawn after the feast, the bird is released with ritual and song. They are never killed, partly because they are poisonous (and thus a poor feast indeed), and partly in thanks- the bird brings news that hunting will be better soon, and the pride's bellies will soon be full of fresh meat.

The Ouroboros Pits

The pace of life slows to a crawl in Naga settlements in the winter, not just because food is scarcer but also because the lukewarm-blooded inhabitants' bodies need to work overtime to keep above the ambient temperatures. For Naga, it's as though they are living in a half-asleep state, mostly spent curled up by a fire, eating their food stores, and tending to hobbies as they feel like it.
There's a very physical sense when spring arrives for the Naga- the air temperature in their swamps and jungles gets high enough that they feel entirely different. They feel awake and alive for the first time in months, with a sort of rush that takes every fiber of their being up into a kind of maddening euphoria. This is when they celebrate the new year, and the frenetic awakening tends to last about a week before life falls back into it's usual patterns.
They use their newfound energy to clean out their dens, hunt/gather, and feast. With the increased rush of energy comes a revving of metabolic engines that can cause feeding frenzies which last for hours over a large kill. Women also take time to force shedding and drain builtup venom (as applicable men typically only deal with these things when they become unbearable. If a woman wants to try for children, this band of time is typically when she will make her move on her men. She is awake, she is alive, she will never feel more ready.

The Deepwater Reach

In the depths of the sea, astrological events hold no sway. Currents stay pretty consistent and seasonal swings in temperature are only detectable to those who surface.
With that said, the denizens of the Deepwater have little need for a calendar and don't celebrate the new year. They keep track of the Mask Kingdom's calendar for two reasons: recordkeeping, and understanding fluctuations in trading with land-dwellers. They don't celebrate the Masks' holidays, including the New Year.

The Masked Kingdom

The Masked Kingdom has determined that neither the solar nor lunar calendars are consistent enough to run their kingdom day-to-day. As such, they've created their own calendar, similar to how the Julian calendar works in our world. Their arbitrary New Year happens in the dead of winter, about a month after the solstice.
A small celebration is held on the night that the new year turns over. These are usually small family affairs, coming together to remember that though the night is dark and cold, the promise of spring and the possibilities of another year are coming with it. It's traditional to eat buns stuffed with bitter winter greens and cheese- partly because by this point of the winter not much else is available, but justifications have been made. The green, after all, represents new growth, and the cheese good things to come.
Children on this night make promises to their parents to do something to improve themselves. This can be simple, like doing their homework without being told or to stop sneaking cookies. If they've succeeded in last year's promise (and sometimes even if they failed, with good intent) the children are rewarded with sweets or a small toy. Occasionally adults will continue this practice after they grow up, using the new year as a fresh slate to lose a few pounds, correct a bad habit, or even take up a new hobby.
Afterward, everyone stays up as long as they can to hear the new year turn over. In the capitol, citizens hope to hear the palace herald sound his horn over the city at midnight. In smaller towns, a volunteer will sound a horn or ring the bell in the village square. It's considered good luck to hear the sound, but most don't have hard feelings about falling asleep too soon.

The Hive

The denizens of the Hive are an odd exception on this list. Because their climate is carefully controlled, the turning of seasons don't bother the citizenry. Since they don't participate in commerce with any other nation, their modes of timekeeping aren't important to them either. Finally, seniority by age is a foreign concept to them- as long as one has passed the Queen's Trial and gained citizen status they are all equal regardless of age. As such they mark larger sections of time not by years but by the turnover of queens.
The Queen has a different perspective on time. As she is constantly preparing for future campaigns, she keeps track of the movements of other nations at her borders. She recognizes new years as a timestamp that other nations use, though she doesn't impose it on her Hive. She also puts her drones into torpor during the winter to conserve resources.
It is debatable whether this means that the drone class marks new years when they waken from torpor. In a way they do, but they have no consciousness or freedom to celebrate it.

The Chimearic Collective

The Collective's new year falls on the same date as the Masked Kingdom's. This is party because the Chimeara stole the calendar wholesale in a desperate attempt to direct the madcap chaos that is their nation.
There is a difference in how it is celebrated, however. Khalid uses the opportunity to assert his power over his city. He sends well wishing messages (with threatening overtones) to the leaders of nations he has brought to heel, and burns effigies of those still resisting. A citywide feast is thrown, with animals representing enemy nations as prominent dishes. He makes a huge speech, whipping his followers up into a frenzy, about how in the coming year they will taste victory over these enemies, and force them to recognize Chimeara as superior humans. He reminds everyone of the wins he gained for the Collective over the past year, though is careful not to mention anything that might remind the company of setbacks.
This time is also when Khalid recognizes those who have joined the Collective over the past year. He asks them to come forward, in front of everyone, and grants them their new names. The newcomers then burn a parchment holding their old names in a bonfire. Once the ritual is complete, a riotous party breaks out around the bonfire for the duration of the new year's eve.