Where To Celebrate New Year's Eve 2024 Near Point Pleasant

If you are looking for places to welcome 2025, here are places holding parties to mark the changing of the year.

If you are looking for ways to ring in 2025, here are places holding parties to mark the changing of the year.

In addition to the nighttime parties on New Year's Eve, there are some daytime events in Ocean County to celebrate the changing of the calendar.

There is a First Night family celebration in Seaside Heights. It begins at 1 p.m. on the boardwalk, with four participating locations: Lucky Leo's, Coin Castle, Casino Pier Arcade and Shake Shoppe. There will be music, magic shows, a caricature artist, and character appearances, and at 5 p.m. there will be fireworks.

There is a "Noon" Year's Eve Party at the Robert J. Novins Planetarium at Ocean County College on Dec. 31. The event begins at 11 a.m. and the show includes an astronomical year in review, plus what to look for in your night sky in 2025. The show ends with a Countdown Celebration. Tickets are $12 for adults, $10 for children and seniors and can be purchased online.

Here is a look at some additional events happening in and near Point Pleasant and Point Pleasant Beach. Some of these require reservations so you will want to call in advance.

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 their own versions of this celebration, such as the Peeps Chick Drop in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and the giant Potato Drop in Boise, Idaho.

The transition from one year to the next is often marked by 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 tradition of New Year’s resolutions dates back 8,000 years to ancient Babylonians, who made promises to return borrowed items and repay debts at the beginning of the new year, which was in mid-March when they planted their crops.

According to legend, if people kept their word, the pagan gods would grant them favor in the coming year. However, if they broke their promises, they would lose favor with the gods.

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 many 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 or a plan for coping with the stress and discomfort that comes with changing a habit or condition.