Description: In 2022, the Winter Solstice (December 21st) in the Northern Hemisphere) results in the shortest amount of daylight of the year (and is the first day of Winter). On this day, the sun will travel the shortest distance through the sky and the earth will achieve its maximum tilt away from the sun. (The opposite happens in the Southern Hemisphere.) Picture the North Pole at the top tilting to the south. From that day after, the amount of daylight will increase by about one minute per day until the Summer Solstice, the first day of Summer and the longest day of the year (June 21, 2023). After that date, daylight decreases by about one minute a day until the Winter Solstice. It’s a rhythm of the seasons going on as long as our solar system.
For numerous cultures, the shortest day of the year marked the reversal of the Sun’s ebbing presence. This brought a feeling of relief and cause for celebration because so many things of life revolve around the seasons, maybe the most important being planting. The daily decrease in daylight stops around the third week in December and was considered a date of a new beginning and rebirth. Numerous celebrations in a wide diversity of cultures recognized this day as a time of celebration long before the birth of Christ. It is easy to understand that the date would be comingled to recognize the birth of Christ.
The first recorded appropriation of the date occurred in 336AD when the Christians in Rome were approved to adopt December 25th as a Christian holiday by Emperor Constantine (the first Emperor of Rome to become a Christian), which coincided with the date that was formerly recognized by Romans to celebrate the Winter Solstice, Around 950 AD Haakon the Good, a Christian King of Norway declared the mid-winter celebrations recognized by Germanic peoples of Northern Europe as “Yule” or “Yuletide.” to be a Christian celebration. Yuletide greetings is still woven into the Christmas Holiday many centuries later. The ancient German cultures also gave us the Christmas tree tradition.
There is debate as to the actual date of Christ’s birth. However, the date we celebrate the event is without equivocation. Only Easter surpasses the significance of Christmas on the Christian calendar.
Christmas represent a time of hope and new beginnings. And the days start getting longer.
