what to wear to a winter solstice party
Winter solstice traditions from around the earth
Merely when you think December has plenty to celebrate between Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and the impending New Year, there's nevertheless another reason to assemble with your loved ones and celebrate: the winter solstice. You might be more familiar with the wintertime solstice every bit the twenty-four hour period with the shortest corporeality of sunlight. Merely around the globe, many cultures still celebrate the longest night of the year with unique wintertime solstice traditions. Read on to find out what they are. And so learn when the winter solstice is this year and what the 2021 winter solstice means for your zodiac.
Winter solstice traditions: Saint Lucia 24-hour interval, Scandinavia
As with many modern celebrations, ancient festivals observing the winter solstice merged with newer traditions to create the holiday season as we know information technology today. In Scandinavia, Saint Lucia Day (too called Saint Lucy's 24-hour interval) on December 13—the solstice by the one-time calendar—marks the start of the Christmas season with a procession of young women in white robes, cerise sashes, and wreaths of candles on their heads lighting the way through the darkness of winter. Honoring Saint Lucia (aka Saint Lucy), this festival incorporates heathen winter solstice celebrations marked past bonfires. Gingersnaps, saffron-flavored buns, and glogg are traditionally served. Find out the history of your favorite Christmas symbols.
Winter solstice traditions: Dongzhi, China
This thousands-of-years-old festival on December 21, 22, or 23 is celebrated with family gatherings and a big meal, including rice assurance chosen tang yuan. Idea to mark the end of the harvest season, the holiday besides has roots in the Chinese concept of yin and yang: After the solstice, the abundance of darkness in winter volition brainstorm to exist balanced with the low-cal of the sun. Find out what 2022 has in store for y'all based on your Chinese zodiac.
Winter solstice traditions: Stonehenge gathering, England
Although no one knows exactly why the ancient circumvolve of Stonehenge was congenital, there's no denying it lines up with the movements of the sun. It's one of the global monuments congenital around the summer solstice, and archaeological research suggests wintertime solstice festivals happened there. Modern revelers have taken upwardly the tradition, gathering at dawn the twenty-four hours subsequently the longest night to witness the magical occurrence of the sun rising through the stones. The best role? Information technology'southward free of charge, although parking is limited. Visitors tin fifty-fifty walk right up to the stones, an area commonly roped off, for this peaceful and sacred celebration.
Winter solstice traditions: Shab-e Yalda, Iran
This ancient Persian festival, like many wintertime solstice holidays, celebrates the terminate of shorter days and the victory of low-cal over darkness. Meaning "birth," Yalda is marked by family gatherings, candles (originally, fires lit all night), poetry readings, and a banquet to get through the longest dark of the yr. Nuts and fruits, including watermelon and pomegranates, are traditionally eaten—legend has information technology that eating the fruits of summer will protect you from illness in winter. Speaking of wintertime, check out these winter quotes that'll help you embrace the season.
Winter solstice traditions: Winter Solstice Lantern Festival, Vancouver
To honor the many cultural traditions that gloat the wintertime solstice, Vancouver's Secret Lantern Society created the urban center's Solstice Lantern Festival. Participants tin can nourish workshops to create their lanterns. On the night of the solstice, processions march throughout the city, culminating in fire performances. Attendees can likewise try to discover their fashion through the Labyrinth of Light, a maze of 600 candles that invites visitors to let become of sometime thoughts and observe new possibilities for the coming year. Don't miss these New Years quotes, which will inspire a fresh first to the year.
Wintertime solstice traditions: Toji, Japan
The winter solstice in Nippon, called Toji, has a few interesting customs associated with it. Traditionally, a wintertime squash called kabocha is eaten, one of just a few crops that would take been bachelor in days of onetime. A hot bath with yuzu citrus fruits is believed to refresh trunk and spirit, ward off disease, and soothe dry winter skin. Apparently rodents called capybaras honey yuzu baths as well, and in a modern twist on the age-quondam tradition, some Japanese zoos will throw the fruit into the warm waters the animals soak in on the winter solstice. Get into the wintry spirit with these stunning pictures of America during wintertime.
Winter solstice traditions: Santo Tomas Festival, Guatemala
Although the Cosmic church now observes the banquet of Saint Thomas on July iii, in Chichicastenango, Guatemala, the festival is still celebrated for a week leading up to the wintertime solstice of December 21. Why? Likely because it'south a mix of the Cosmic ceremony with native Mayan rituals that may have been timed to the solstice. Today, the feast features brightly colored traditional costumes, masks, parades, fireworks, and music. The highlight is the death-defying custom of the "flight pole dance": climbing a 100-foot pole, tying on a rope, and jumping off the top. Yikes! If you're staying within the United States during the winter, here'due south a list of the all-time wintertime destination in every state.
Winter solstice traditions: Soyal, Hopi Tribe
The indigenous Hopi people of present-day northern Arizona celebrate the winter solstice every bit part of their religious tradition honoring kachina (or katsina), which are ancestral spirits representing the natural world. During the Soyal solstice anniversary, which is led past a tribal main, the sun is welcomed back to its summer path with ritual dances. Gift-giving to children, prayers for the coming yr, singing, and storytelling are likewise office of the festivities. Prayer sticks and kachina dolls are often made in training for the commemoration.
Winter solstice traditions: Burning the Clocks, Brighton, England
Fire, needed to light the dark days of winter, has traditionally been part of winter solstice celebrations. The modernistic-24-hour interval Burning of Clocks festival in the seaside town of Brighton took upwards that notion for its yearly solstice parade, bonfire, and burn down bear witness. People wearing costumes representing clocks and the passage of time march with lanterns made of wood and newspaper to the beach, where the lanterns are burned in a huge bonfire, symbolizing the wishes, hopes, and fears that will be passed into the flames.
Winter solstice traditions: Newgrange gathering, Ireland
The 5,200-year-old Newgrange passage tomb and ancient temple are aligned to the winter solstice: A minor opening above the entrance fills with calorie-free on several sunrises surrounding the solstice, gradually extending throughout the chamber to illuminate it. The dramatic consequence lasts for 17 minutes. Although the exact reason why the tomb was created this way isn't known, it'due south speculated that it marks the kickoff of a new year and the triumph of light over darkness. Today, visitors tin can use for a lottery drawing to exist inside the temple at the moment of the sunrise; others will get together outside the monument. Did you know aboriginal Celtic traditions are one of the reasons our Christmas colors include ruby and green?
Winter solstice traditions: Illuminations, California'southward mission churches
An illumination effect similar to that seen in Republic of ireland'south Newgrange tomb has been discovered halfway around the world in more recent (though however quondam) structures: mission churches in California and Latin America, such every bit Old Mission San Juan Bautista, built by Spanish missionaries in the late 18th and early 19th centuries to convert Native Americans to Catholicism. At dawn on the winter solstice, a shaft of lite enters the church building and illuminates the chantry or a sacred object. The churches appear to have been congenital purposefully to marshal with the sun's path, in what could have been an effort to merge the ethnic people'due south reverence for the solstice with Christian beliefs. Today, people gather at the churches to witness this recently rediscovered phenomenon and to celebrate with Native American and Catholic traditions.
Winter solstice traditions: Dongji, South korea
"Footling New year's day" is marked in S Korea with the traditional eating of a red edible bean porridge called patjuk. Red is considered to be a lucky color, then the dish is meant to keep bad spirits away while embracing expert wishes for the coming year. Other Dongji traditions include giving calendars, as Korean kings used to practise, and socks. And this is a solar day Koreans wish for snow: Cold weather condition on the winter solstice is said to bring a bountiful harvest. Wondering what the summer months bring? Learn these facts about the summertime solstice that y'all never knew.
Wintertime solstice traditions: Montol Festival, Cornwall, England
A reinterpretation of ancient Cornish winter traditions, the 12-year-old winter solstice festival of Montol in the town of Penzance celebrates the culture of England's westernmost peninsula. Wearing carnival-like costumes, guisers (those wearing disguises) form a procession with lanterns, creating a "river of fire" meant to celebrate the return of the sun. In the quondam custom, guisers would roam the streets, putting on skits, singing songs, and pulling pranks; role of the fun was trying to guess who was who. Today, traditional music, dancing, and performances add to the festive temper.
Sources:
- Britannica: "Winter solstice"
- Sweden: "The Lucia Tradition"
- Britannica: "7 Wintertime Solstice Celebrations From Around the World"
- Stonehenge Tours: "Stonehenge Winter Solstice Tour"
- Clandestine Lantern Society: "28th Annual Wintertime Solstice Lantern Festival"
- National Geographic: "Solstice"
- Nippon Kyo: "Does Nihon Take the Cutest Wintertime Solstice Tradition? Why Capybaras Take Yuzu Baths to Gloat the Start of Winter in Nihon"
- Rove: "Fiesta de Santo Tomás 2021"
- The Hopi Tribe: "Welcome to the Hopi Tribe"
- Britannica: "Hopi"
- SameSky: "Burning the Clocks"
- Newgrange: "Newgrange – Earth Heritage Site"
- Heritage Ireland: "Brú na Bóinne Visitor Centre (Newgrange and Knowth)"
- Old Mission San Juan: "Onetime Mission San Juan Bautista"
- Smithsonian Magazine: "How the Lord's day Illuminates Spanish Missions on the Winter Solstice"
- Los Angeles Times: "Winter solstice means 'illumination' at California mission"
- Visit Seoul: "A Warm and Sweet Winter Solstice"
- Visit Cornwall: "Montol Festival"
Originally Published: Dec 21, 2021
Source: https://www.rd.com/list/winter-solstice-traditions/
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