LIVE – Updated at 15:30. Pop the champagne. It’s 2025, and the January sales are officially here. The new year has arrived, bringing with it the most exciting shopping event of the season.

Lunar New Year: January new moon ushers in Year of the Rabbit Published: Jan. 20, 2023, 8:40 a.m. Lanterns are hung from a tree outside Ditan Park in Beijing on February 1, 2018.

The seventh day (January 28) of the Lunar New Year is said to be the day when the Chinese mother goddess, Nuwa, created humanity. Thus, it’s called renri/jan jat (the people’s birthday).

“January 1st became our New Year’s Day thanks to the grand relay chain of history,” said Kevin S. Lee, a graduate student studying ancient cultures at the University of Texas.

The new year once started in March—here's why. For starters, January didn’t exist for the ancient Romans. Here’s how their calendar evolved into our modern system of marking time.