Rich in history, custom and tradition, the winter solstice is also, for some, a favorite day of the year. It marks the end of days with minimum daylight and signals that a spring awakening is just a few months away. It is also a central theme to one of the best-known Christmas carols.
This year, December 21 has the shortest period of daylight and the longest night of the year. The Boston area will see the sun rising after 7 a.m. and setting a bit after 4 p.m., just nine hours. Contrast that to the nearly 14 hours of daylight we will see in June.
This year’s solstice will also see a relatively rare celestial event as it coincides with a nearly full Cold or Long Night moon, something that will not happen again until 2094. Let’s hope for a clear sky.
The winter solstice has been celebrated for thousands of years; the ancients knew it meant that warmer days were ahead and a time for celebration. Pagans called it Yule, a day for feasting and exchanging gifts. Thousands still journey to Stonehenge in England each year, were the stone structures are perfectly aligned with the setting sun.
In Ireland, a lottery controls visits to Newgrange, a burial mound that is 5,200 years old. Built by stone age farmers, it contains a 63-foot passage that leads into a chamber aligned with the sun as it rises on the winter solstice, according to its website. It is older than Stonehenge and the Great Pyramids.
In Iran, it was common to light fires and stay up all night to guard against evil lurking in the longer, darker hours. In Japan, the custom is to soak in hot baths with citrus fruit to welcome the winter solstice and ward off illness.
Today, many see the winter solstice as a day for introspection, where those things you would like to change are written on scraps of paper and then burned in a fire. For others it is a day for showing forgiveness and doing good deeds. Grains and seeds are sometimes left out for animals desperate for food in the barren midwinter.
The Yule log, marking the rebirth of the sun, remains a tradition and a time to contemplate the year ahead, followed by singing “Deck the Halls,” a Yuletide carol.
A family gathering with favorite foods, prayers of thanksgiving and a feast cake with a sun image provides a fitting end to the day.