Winter Solstice
Speaking of the holiday season in winter, the first thing to come to mind must be the “big holidays like Christmas day or New Year Day. Many people are vaguely aware of the approach of the winter solstice, but how much do you really know about it? No matter whether you are a winter fan or a spring fan who wish it would go away faster. We can still have something about it to talk, the natural phenomenon, traditions or celebrate for the shortest day of the year.
What is Winter Solstice?
The winter solstice is the shortest day and longest night of the year. In the Northern Hemisphere, it takes place between December 20 and 23, depending on the year. (The reverse is true in the Southern Hemisphere, where the shortest day of the year occurs in June.) Cultures around the world have long held feasts and celebrated holidays around the winter solstice. Fire and light are traditional symbols of celebrations held on the darkest day of the year.
The winter solstice is the day of the year with the fewest hours of daylight, and it marks the start of astronomical winter. After the winter solstice, days start becoming longer and nights shorter as spring approaches.
In 2020, the date of winter solstice is on December 21. The date of the winter solstice varies from year to year, and can fall anywhere between December 20 and December 23, with the 21st or 22nd being the most common dates. The reason for this is because the tropical year—the time it takes for the sun to return to the same spot relative to Earth—is different from the calendar year. The next solstice occurring on December 20 will not happen until 2080, and the next December 23 solstice will not occur until 2303.
Chinese Winter Solstice Traditions and Celebrations
Dong Zhi: The Chinese celebration of the winter solstice, Dong Zhi (which means “Winter Arrives”) welcomes the return of longer days and the corresponding increase in positive energy in the year to come.
The most traditional food for this celebration in southern China is the glutinous rice balls known as tang yuan, often brightly colored and cooked in sweet or savory broth. Northern Chinese enjoy plain or meat-stuffed dumplings, a particularly warming and nourishing food for a midwinter celebration. Besides, people will also cook lamb in winter days especially on Winter Solstice. People think Lamb is warm in nature. It can not only increase body heat and resist the cold, but also increase digestive enzymes, protect the stomach wall, repair gastric mucosa, help digestion of the spleen and stomach, and play an anti-aging effect.
The celebration may have begun as a harvest festival, when farmers and fisherman took time off to celebrate with their families. Today, it remains an occasion for families to join together to celebrate the year that has passed and share good wishes for the year to come.
World’s Tradition and Celebration on Winter Solstice
Ancient cultures viewed the winter solstice as a time of death and rebirth. The seeming death of the light and very real threat of starvation over the winter months would have weighed heavily on early societies, who held varied solstice celebrations and rites meant to herald the return of the sun and hope for new life. Scandinavian and Germanic pagans lit fires and may have burned Yule logs as a symbolic means of welcoming back the light. Cattle and other animals were slaughtered around midwinter, followed by feasting on what was the last fresh meat for several months. The modern Druidic celebration Alban Arthan reveres the death of the Old Sun and birth of the New Sun.
Ancient Romans celebrated reversals at the midwinter festival of saturnalia. The holiday, which began as a festival to honor the agricultural god Saturn, was held to commemorate the dedication of his temple in 497 BCE. It quickly became a time of widespread revelry and debauchery in which societal roles were overturned, with masters serving the people they enslaved and servants being allowed to insult their masters. Mask-wearing and play-acting were also part of Saturnalia’s reversals, with each household electing a King of Misrule. Saturnalia was gradually replaced by Christmas throughout the Roman Empire, but many of its customs survive as Christmas traditions.
The Iranian festival of Yalda is celebrated on the longest night of the year. In pre-Islamic times, it heralded the birth of Mithra, the ancient sun god, and his triumph over darkness. Zoroastrian lore holds that evil spirits wander the Earth and the forces of the destructive spirit Ahriman are the strongest on this long night. People are encouraged to stay up most of the night in the company of one another, eating, talking, and sharing poetry and stories, to avoid any brushes with dark entities. Beliefs about the presence of evil on the longest night are also echoed in Celtic and Germanic folklore.
As Shelley mentioned, “If winter comes, can spring be far behind?’’ Living in the Northern Hemisphere, once the winter solstice past, the spring is on the way. The 2020 is less than 20 days, people wish for the new 2021 are different and more good things happen. For Advken, with the guiding of the industry, we will still strive to design and make new products for customers which providing the good vape experience too. At the almost end of 2020 and to welcome the new 2021, we all advken team member are hoping everyone have a healthy and wealthy 2021, make wishes come true and shorten the wish lists.
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See, those are potento X kit. What color do you prefer? Let’s find something warm in the winter days.
