The document discusses the history and traditions of celebrating the winter solstice in different cultures. In many ancient cultures like the Romans, Scandinavians, and Slavs, the winter solstice was honored with festivals and rituals to mark the returning sun. Neolithic people gathered at sites like Stonehenge to observe the solstice, and modern pagans continue winter solstice traditions there. Christians later set the date of Christmas near the solstice, and Anglo-Saxons had their own Mother's Night celebration at that time of year to honor the solstice.

1. Celebrating the Winter Solstice
Jill Robbins, Ph.D.
Multimedia eLearning Teacher

3. What’s a Solstice?
The Learner’s Dictionary tell us that a solstice is “one
of the two times during the year when the sun is
farthest north or south of the equator.”
In the Northern Hemisphere, the summer solstice
occurs around June 22 and the winter solstice occurs
around December 22. These are opposite in the
Southern Hemisphere.

4. Early Roman Celebrations
Saturnalia
• Honored Saturn (father of the gods)
• 7 day period of revelry and reversal of the
usual order (masters served their slaves)
• Gifts were given
• Crime was common – this led to English word
saturnalia used as a period of wild behavior.

5. Scandinavia
Feast of Juul
• Fires were lit to symbolize the heat and light
of the returning sun
• Pieces of the ‘yule log’ were kept as good luck
charms or its ashes used as fertilizer on fields
• Custom survives in modern days with
YouTube videos of a burning log and cakes in
the shape of a log

6. Yule logs
You Tube Yule Log

7. Slavic
Korochun
Symbolized the day when spirits associated
with darkness and decay were most powerful
• Hors, symbolizing the old sun, dies on Dec. 22
• Hors is resurrected on Dec. 23 and becomes
the new sun, Koleda.
• Western Slavs lit fires at cemeteries to keep
their departed loved ones warm

8. Neolithic People of British Isles &
Modern Pagans
Stonehenge – a means of predicting the
solstices and equinoxes
Stones are aligned to the sunset of the winter
solstice.
• Dates to 3100 BCE
• May have been a burial ground or a pace of
healing
• Modern pagans celebrate the solstice there

9. Christians
Advent is the four-week period before
Christmas.
The date of Christmas, December 25th, is
thought to have been set because of the
existing celebration of solstice celebrations.

10. Anglo-Saxons
Mōdraniht (Old English "Night of the Mothers"
or "Mothers'-night")
• Held at what is now Christmas Eve
• A sacrifice may have been made.