Chinese New Year symbol an Ox

For most Westerners who are used to celebrating events on the same date every year, “Chinese” New Year is something of a mystery.
The Chinese observe both a lunar and solar calendar, marking the start of the lunar New Year sometime between the Winter solstice (the shortest day of the year) and Spring solstice (when the day and night are equal in length).
In China, the lunar New Year celebration is still called the “Spring Festival.”
The Lunar year begins at the moment of the new moon in the second lunar month after the Winter solstice. This works out to either late January or early February in the Gregorian (Western) calendar.
This year, the exact new moon moment is on Monday, January 26, at 2:55 a.m. Eastern Standard Time (11:55 p.m. on January 25 on the west coast) - meaning that in the United States and Canada, the precise lunar New Year falls on two different days.
The Chinese name the Lunar years after animals in a 12-year cycle beginning with the Rat, followed by Ox (Cow), Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Sheep, Monkey, Rooster, Dog and ending with the year of the Pig (Boar). What we number as 2009 is an Ox year.
Because lunar and solar cycles don’t match up perfectly, the lunar calendar has left over days. So seven times every 19 years, they add a Lunar month. In 2009, there will be two 5th lunar months.
Their practice is to have a unique name for each day of the month. Since lunar months are 29 or 30 days, and sometimes there is leap month, the Chinese invented a system with 60 names, drawn from combining the 12 animals with five elements - Metal, Water, Wood, Fire and Earth, which are associated with colors.
While the lunar calendar serves for civil affairs, the solar calendar is more predictive for China’s agriculture - and astrology.
It’s based on the sun’s entry into the tropical zodiac, and is divided into 24 segments and 12 months. If a lunar month lacks a “solar midpoint,” it’s time for a leap month.
The solar calendar uses the 60-name system for year names and the first day of next solar year will be on February 4, marking the start of the Earth (Brown) Ox year, though some Chinese astrologers count Winter solstice as the start of the year.
If all this seems amusingly quaint to Westerners, consider this.
The calendar we use was first invented by the Romans, who started out with 10 months that had solar midpoints (ides) and counted 304 days - with 61 days in winter left uncounted.
Julius Caesar made a calendar with a 365 day year, adding two months (January and February) and re-named July (and the new calendar) after himself. It still had leftover days and the leap month, which could make a year 377 days long.
The western calendar has had to be “fixed” several times over the last 2,500 years, lastly by Pope Gregory in 1582, when despite all, the Julian calendar had drifted off by 13 days.
To keep things close, the Gregorian calendar has a leap year every four years, except in century years that aren’t divisible by 400 (2000 was a leap year, 1900 wasn’t.)
In contrast, the Chinese lunar calendar has worked, virtually unchanged, since it was instituted 4,705 years ago - or 4,706 years ago, depending on which calendar you’re using.