Also called Midwinter, Yule, Dongzhi, Yalda Night, Shab-e Chelleh, Newgrange solstice
Ways people across the world have kept the longest night and greeted the returning sun: watching dawn enter the tomb at Newgrange, staying up through Persian Yalda Night with pomegranates and Hafez, and eating tangyuan for family reunion at the Chinese Dongzhi festival.
Tonight's moon is read when the page loads.
Take care: Keep any fire in a proper hearth, fire pit or fireproof dish, with water or an extinguisher at hand; never leave flames unattended and check local burn bans. Dress warmly and watch footing if you go out in the dark to see the sunrise.
Newgrange in the Boyne Valley was built around 3100 BC with a roofbox above its entrance. At sunrise around the winter solstice, light runs up the passage and lights the inner chamber for about 17 minutes. Michael O'Kelly was the first in modern times to see it, on 21 December 1967. Today a lottery picks the few visitors allowed inside.
Families gather on the longest night to eat watermelon, pomegranate, nuts and dried fruit, and read Hafez and the Shahnameh until after midnight. The red fruits stand for dawn and life. Yalda was added to UNESCO's intangible heritage lists in December 2022.
Uses: Pomegranate, Watermelon, Nuts, Divan of Hafez
The winter solstice festival is one of the most important family days in the Chinese calendar. In the south, families make and eat tangyuan, glutinous rice balls that symbolise reunion. In the north, dumplings are eaten, a custom tied to the Han dynasty physician Zhang Zhongjing who gave them to the poor against frostbite.
Uses: Glutinous rice flour, Sweet soup
Few dates in human history are as well attested as the winter solstice. At Newgrange, built around 3100 BC, the passage and roofbox were aligned so that midwinter sunrise reaches the back chamber, which makes it one of the oldest solar alignments known. Archaeologist Michael O'Kelly, who excavated the site from 1962 to 1975, confirmed the effect on 21 December 1967. What rites the builders held there is unknown.
In China, the Dongzhi festival began in the Zhou dynasty and became official under the Han, when officials rested and families honoured heaven and ancestors. In Iran, Yalda marks the opening of the forty-day cold season, Chelleh. Modern Pagans call the solstice Yule and keep it with candles and evergreens, but there is no single ancient solstice spell; the shared thread is staying together through the longest night.
Before Chinese New Year, families send the Kitchen God back to Heaven to report on the household, first smearing honey or malt candy on his lips so his report will be sweet, then burning his paper image.
A modern release rite: write down what you want to let go of and burn the paper in a fireproof bowl, usually at year's end. Popularised by Unity churches in the twentieth century, with older relatives in New Year fire customs.
Opening a respected book at random and taking the first passage your eye or finger lands on as an answer to your question.
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