Shortest day of the year, and longest night.
Christmas rituals are sometimes based on or originate from Celtic, Roman, or Viking rituals for the Winter Solstice. We can thank the Romans and Celts for most of our modern day Christmas traditions.
The festival of Saturnalia, an ancient pagan holiday which honoured the Roman God Saturn, took place every year between the 17th and 24th December. This was basically a week of eating, drinking and giving presents during the Northern Hemisphere’s winter solstice.
Likewise, the Celts celebrated the fact that the winter solstice had arrived and rejoiced at the fact that the nights were once more getting lighter and spring was only just around the corner.
I like to think of this as the 1st day of SPRING! (never mind reality… if the days are getting longer I am happy!)
I like to think of the winter solstice as “the Sun’s Birthday”.
Lots of us celebrate another Son’s birthday around Christmas 🎄
Cheers to all ☮️♥️
Thanks, Patricia.
It’s a bit much to believe the perfection of the Earth’s movement happens by chance or magic.
Thanks for the graphic. I’ve always had this really vague notion of what causes our longer/shorter days, but the graphic you just posted suddenly made it crystal clear!
Happy Solstice to you, too. It may take awhile for the days to get appreciably longer, but the psychological benefit is the thing! It’s like hump days back in the 9-5 environment!
LOL, so true. We only gain 1 sec tomorrow, but hey, every second counts!
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Most of all… they’re not getting any shorter! Up here in the north it seems like it’s been getting full dark before 5 pm. We moved a goodly distance south with the latest move, but being in a canyon sure shortens those glimpses of sun. 😉