I am a firm believer in the idea that you can celebrate the past year on any day of the year, and even on every day of the year. After all, for every day, there are 365 that came before it and 365 that will come after it! So I celebrate a few New Year’s holidays.
For many earth religions, including Neo-Paganism, Wicca and Neo-Druidism, this sunset marks the new year’s holiday Samhain (that’s pronounced “sow-en”, sow rhyming with now, not sew). Literally, it is Summer’s Ending. The day after is Winter’s Beginning.
Tomorrow is also (depending on who you ask, of course) All Saints, All Souls, Día de los Muertos, and the Day of the Dead… for Western Christianity of various flavors, including Catholicism.
No matter what traditions you follow, the change in the weather in the Northern Hemisphere is pretty hard to ignore. 
The edge between the past and the future thins this night. Autumn holds us close, as the Earth turns on its axis to tilt further toward winter. What has come before seems closer, as the deepening shadows herald the mystery that is the seasons’ change. The air feels, tastes different this night.
Perhaps it is merely the change in humidity and air pressure difference of a cold front moving through. But I for one gladly ignore the technicalities of scientific measurement, prefering to feel the scents, the textures, the wind across my face, the crunch of leaves under my feet, the color of the sky… these are a sip of the essence of change.
I find it a convenient time, halfway between the autumnal equinox and the winter solstice, to think back on the year and toward the next. To prepare myself, both physically and mentally, and my home… for the coming winter and for the future. To make peace with the past. To remember the dead, those who have come before, and those who are yet to be. It’s also a time to reflect on who I have been, and who I want to become.
This night I will begin to bid farewell to the previous year, and make provision for the year to come. Tomorrow, I will mark the day with a salute to and reflection on some of my ancestors. And as night falls tomorrow, a new year begins.
The wheel turns.