New Year's Eve 2021: Google prepares for year-end with festive doodle

On New Year's Eve 2021, Google unveiled a celebratory doodle to prepare for the next year, 2022, with lots of candies, confetti and jacklights. The doodle went live on Google's homepage across multiple regions as soon as the clock struck 12 on Thursday to show December 31, the last day of the year.

The Google holiday doodle has got a giant candy, captioned “2021”, that looks ready to pop as soon as the clock strikes midnight on December 31 to welcome in the New Year 2022. The other letters of the word ‘Google’ were also seen to be colourfully decorated in the doodle with jacklights. In addition, there's some extra new year's confetti to add to the celebratory mood of the doodle.

This time, however, the Google Doodle did not come with many descriptions. Instead, the search engine is relying on its users to appreciate the unambiguous and straightforward design of the doodle to usher in the new year. “That's a wrap for 2021 – Happy New Year's Eve!” wrote Google on its doodles' archive documenting the new design.

It is evident from the archive that Google invested in much more unique and elaborate designs for New Year's Eve doodles before this. However, the design remains quite plain this time.

The year 2021 was marred by the coronavirus pandemic, which resulted in multiple waves of infections, hospitalisations, and millions of deaths across the world. The coronavirus, first detected two years ago and declared a global pandemic in March 2020, has killed more than 5.4 million people, triggered economic crises and seen societies ricochet in and out of lockdowns.

The year is ending on a grim note, too, under the shadow of the new, highly transmissible Omicron variant of the coronavirus, which has got infectious diseases experts, medical health professionals, and world governments around the globe in a state of high alert.

From Greece to Mexico, from Barcelona to Bali and across swathes of Europe, authorities have cancelled or curtailed public gatherings, either closing or imposing curfews on nightclubs.