December 2019

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18 Buckden Roundabout
December 2019
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Winter Solstice
This year the winter
solstice, or midwin-
ter, is on Sunday
22nd December. This
is the shortest day of
the year when the
sun rises latest and
sets earliest. This
year the shortest
day will last 7 hours
and 42 minutes in
our area.
After the winter sol-
stice the days do get
longer though the
coldest winter
weather and highest
chance of snow is
often in January and
February.
We tend to refer to the winter solstice as a day but the solstice
actually refers to the moment in that day when the sun is at its
lowest.
The world 'solstice' comes from the Latin solstitium meaning
'sun stands still', because the apparent movement of the Sun's
path north or south stops before changing direction. This is
very difficult to observe directly but this has been calculated to
happen at 4:19 am in the UK this year.
Winter solstice is an important time for cultures across the
globe. Under the old Julian calendar, the winter solstice oc-
curred on 25th December. With the introduction of the Gregori-
an calendar the solstice slipped to around the 21st, but the
Christian celebration of Jesus’s birth continued to be held on
25th December.
The Feast of Juul (Yule) was a pre-Christian festival observed in
Scandinavia at the time of the winter solstice. Fires would be lit
to symbolise the heat and light of the returning sun and a log
was gathered and burnt in the hearth as a tribute the Norse
god Thor. Present day Christmas customs and traditions such
as the Yule log stem from the pagan Juul.
While both the winter and summer solstices are celebrated by
modern day religions, the ancient civilisation that first built
Stonehenge most likely did so primarily for the winter solstice,
perhaps to request a good growing season in the year to come.
The main features of the Stonehenge site date from the centu-
ries around 3500 BC.
From www.rmg.co.uk