11 New Year’s Eve Instagram Caption Ideas That Aren’t Just Lyrics From ‘Rent’ Again

Is there a night more Instagrammable than New Year's Eve? With its perma-theme of glitter, glamour, and a whole lot of cheeting, the last day of the year inevitably fills up our IG feeds for weeks to follow, even after the last of the confetti has been swept up and hangovers have subsided. If you want to do the most, here are a few New Year's Eve Instagram caption ideas so you can plan your photos shoots ahead of time.

Variations of New Year's Eve celebrations have been around essentially since humans began marking the progression of time — which is to say, for thousands of years. Our current NYE celebration is derived from the ancient Roman feast of the god Janus, according to Earth Sky. Considering our modern celebration of holiday gift giving and indulgence also has roots in ancient Roman traditions, I gotta hand it to them: they knew how to make the winter months slightly more bearable.

Janus, you may have guessed, is the namesake for the month of January. As the god of doorways and beginnings, Janus was often depicted with two faces: one looking to the past and one to the future.

For agriculturally-based cultures, the December solstice, which marked the shortest day of the year, and the weeks immediately following held a particular importance, both practically and spiritually. The arrival of January meant the days would once again be lengthening. It was a time of hope and promise, a brief period of time when the worry of winter — short days, short food supplies and, uh, the cold — was lifted. The growing months were coming, and with them prosperity.

Today, NYE marks the arrival of the first day in the Gregorian calendar, Jan. 1 (the Gregorian calendar was established in 1582, by the way). Though this annual celebration of good riddance and new beginnings wasn't always held at the end of December — the ancient Mesopotamians in 2000 B.C.E. celebrated mid-March, while the ancient Egyptians went all out in late September — by the Middle Ages, it was a generally accepted fact in the Northern Hemisphere that the year began with January's arrival.

But although we've been ringing it in for millennia, the current American NYE traditions are their own... thing. The big Times Square ball drop? That's been around since the turn of the 20th century, when officials realized that setting fireworks off over crowds meant mass amounts of ash raining down upon citizens (yes, really). The ball drop meant a visual countdown, without the potential of injury.

The resolutions tradition? That's a re-appropriated ancient Mesopotamian practice: Mesopotamians would resolve to be better people in the upcoming year, in an attempt to appease their gods. Which, frankly, isn't that still what we do? Even if "gods" are replaced with, like, Beyoncé?

But the act of ringing in the new year is a universal one, regardless of the amount of glitter or champagne. And you better believe that everyone, from nearly every continent, will be out on Instagram giving it their best. Join them. Try one (or several) of these captions on for size.