Watchnight Parties

This post is being made at 9:00 a.m. CST in the U.S., but in Japan (where I long lived), it is midnight and the beginning of a new year according to the now-standard “Western calendar.”* According to the Japanese calendar, though, this is the beginning of Reiwa 8, the 8^th year of the current emperor on the Chrysanthemum Throne. 

In Japan, the new year is celebrated mostly after midnight. Many Japanese people make a hatsumōde (初詣、“first shrine or temple visit of the New Year”) after midnight on December 31, although many wait until daybreak on January 1, as seeing the sunrise in the new year is considered quite meaningful.

Years in Japan are traditionally viewed as completely separate, with each new year providing a fresh start. Consequently, all duties are supposed to be completed by the end of the year, while bōnenkai (忘年会、“year forgetting parties”) are often held in December with the purpose of leaving the old year’s worries and troubles behind.

In large Japanese cities, most younger Japanese people celebrate New Year’s Eve much the same as young people in USAmerican cities. Traditional (and especially rural) families, though, spend the evening at home for a relaxed family meal, watching TV specials, and participating in rituals to welcome the new year.

So, for most people in Japan, there are not watchnight parties such as most of us older people in the U.S. remember—and perhaps many still participate in, although it has been a very long time since I stayed up until midnight on New Year’s Eve.

Religious watchnight parties first became common in the U.S. among Methodists. In 1727, the Moravian Church was formed in Herrnhut, a village on the estate of Count Nicholas Ludwig von Zinzendorf in Saxony, Germany.

Watchnight services originated in Moravian communities around 1733 in what is now the Czech Republic, where believers held three-hour vigils on New Year's Eve, often preceded by a love feast, to reflect on the year, pray, and prepare for the future. 

John Wesley encountered a Moravian watchnight service on New Year’s Eve 1738, describing a powerful spiritual experience that influenced his ministry. By 1740, he formalized it for Methodists as “Covenant Renewal Services,” featuring singing, prayers, scripture, and communion held on New Year’s Eve as a godly alternative to drunken celebrations.

Consequently, watchnight services spread widely among Methodists in Britain and then in North America as a New Year’s Eve religious observance. As Christianity moved westward, Methodists and Baptists were the primary Protestant denominations, and Baptists didn’t have watchnight services for quite some time, as they were considered too “Methodistic.”

Gradually, though, more and more Baptist churches began to have watchnight services, and as a Baptist boy in the late 1940s and early 1950s, I remember participating in such church gatherings on New Year’s Eve. Then, in my early years as a pastor, and later even in Japan, I led and enjoyed meaningful watchnight services.

Black Christians held a meaningful watchnight service on December 31, 1862.** On that night, enslaved and free African Americans gathered, many in secret, to ring in the new year and await news that the Emancipation Proclamation had taken effect. 

On September 22, President Lincoln had issued an executive order, declaring that enslaved people in the rebelling Confederate States were legally free. However, the decree would not take effect until the clock struck midnight at the start of the new year. Thus, that New Year’s Eve, came to be known as “Watch Night” or “Freedom's Eve.”

According to Perplexity AI, many Black churches today hold watchnight services, reflecting on slavery's history and emancipation. Sermons often recount the 1862 gatherings, framing the night as  “Freedom's Eve” while blending it with broader themes of hope and justice.

Initially meant to welcome emancipation, the watchnight services now encourage reflection on the history of slavery and freedom, as well as reflection on the past year—both its trials and triumphs—while also anticipating what the new year will have in store. It is a continuation of generations of faith that freedom and renewal lie ahead.

_____

  * In November 1872, the Japanese government decreed that the old calendar, derived from Chinese models, would be replaced by the Gregorian calendar.​ Under that reform, the day after December 2, 1872 (lunisolar), was designated January 1, 1873. Thus, since 1873, the official Japanese New Year has been celebrated on January 1, rather than on the variable late-January/February date of the old lunisolar year.​

** This section is based on “The Historical Legacy of Watch Night” as found at this website: https://nmaahc.si.edu/explore/stories/historical-legacy-watch-night. Much of the same content is found in What does Watch Night mean for Black Americans today? It dates back to the Emancipation Proclamation, posted by Religious News Service on January 1, 2024.