Happy Winter Solstice

[Oldgateboatdriver]

Best wishes to all on this Winter Solstice day. We are over the hump once again.

And for our Pagan brethren out there: Noel!

:gottree:

 

[The Bread Guy]

Here's to longer days from here on in!

:subbies:

 

[George Wallace]

:christmas happy:

AH!  Yes!  The sun will shine longer tomorrow...... :subbies:

 

[Oldgateboatdriver]

And one more year yet again.

The sun will come out tomorrow ... a little earlier.

Happy Solstice to all, and Noel to our Pagan friends.

:subbies:  :gottree:

 

[jollyjacktar]

My favourite day of the year for that very reason.  More sun, less darkness.  Huzzaa  :subbies:

 

[kkwd]

According to https://www.timeanddate.com tomorrow the daytime will be 3 seconds longer.

 

[Kat Stevens]

According to https://www.timeanddate.com tomorrow the daytime will be 3 seconds longer.

Every little bit helps.

 

[The Bread Guy]

Every little bit helps.

:nod:

 

[Colin Parkinson]

thanks, totally forgot

 

[Oldgateboatdriver]

Today, at 11:28 Eastern Standard Time, our little "spacecraft" will whiz, at 108,000 Km/h, through that point in our travel where the relative tilt of the North end of our spin axis in relation to our local star is at its greatest, simultaneously ending the last and beginning the next Celestial year, making every day thereafter in the Northern hemisphere imperceptibly longer than the last for the next half year.  ;D

Happy Winter Solstice (or summer one for our Aussie and Kiwi friends) everyone, and to our Pagan brethren: Noel!

:subbies:

 

[Cloud Cover]

Ok, that explains the incredible witchiness around the house last night and this morning.

 

[Strike]

FYI - Pagan holiday is Yule.  Hence the burning of the Yule log on the fire this time of year to bring in the light on the darkest day.

Yes...I dabbled in my youth. 

 

[Oldgateboatdriver]

Yule in the North, and Noel in the South (France, Spain, Northern Italy), and  the word "Noel" was also used, as a result, as an expression of great joy throughout the year. It remained so until the Holy Roman Catholic church - which couldn't stand people being happy or celebrating a non-religious event such as being over the hump decided to hijack the whole thing to stamp it down and suddenly "discovered" that Jesus would have somehow been born on December 25.

Trust me, there was no joy attached to the Christian Christmas celebration (unless you enjoy sitting through three consecutive midnight mass in latin). Until Coca-Cola rebranded St-Nicholas into Santa Claus and started the Christmas gifting craze about 110 years ago, Christmas was all religious. Any traditions of happiness and of gift giving and decorating with lights and trees are actually from the original Pagan Yule/Noel traditions.  ;D

P.s.: if you pronounce Yule and Noel quickly, repeatedly and alternatively, you quickly discover that they have a common origin or are the same, as words go. 

 

[Old Sweat]

Thanks for this, OGBD. Re your comment about Christmas, my grandfather, who came from Scotland in 1912, once told us that when he was growing up there, there was little notice made of Christmas, while New Years was a major event.

 

[Kat Stevens]

Thanks for this, OGBD. Re your comment about Christmas, my grandfather, who came from Scotland in 1912, once told us that when he was growing up there, there was little notice made of Christmas, while New Years was a major event.

Who wouldn't make a fuss over a day you get to eat ground gizzards and porridge all nicely boiled up in a sheep's stomach?

 

[Remius]

Yule in the North, and Noel in the South (France, Spain, Northern Italy), and  the word "Noel" was also used, as a result, as an expression of great joy throughout the year. It remained so until the Holy Roman Catholic church - which couldn't stand people being happy or celebrating a non-religious event such as being over the hump decided to hijack the whole thing to stamp it down and suddenly "discovered" that Jesus would have somehow been born on December 25.

Interestingly enough you can trace the Dec. 25th thing to the festival of Dies Natalis Solis Invicti.  The cult of Sol Invictus (basically a sun god cult)in the Roman empire was one that competed with early Christianity and may be the reason Dec. 25th was hijacked.  Strangely it had nothing to do with the Solstice.  Also of note this is why we have Sundays.  Constantine decreed that sundays be a day of rest.  A direct effect of Sol Invictus we feel to this day.

 

[Kirkhill]

:subbies:

And a Good Yule to all....

Having grown up in a mongrel household (English Episcopalian father and Scots Presbyterian mother) I can vouch that in the 60's my Scots grandparents virtually ignored Christmas in their own home (though they they weren't spare on presents).  Christmas was more of an English thing.

 

[Oldgateboatdriver]

Interestingly enough you can trace the Dec. 25th thing to the festival of Dies Natalis Solis Invicti.  The cult of Sol Invictus (basically a sun god cult)in the Roman empire was one that competed with early Christianity and may be the reason Dec. 25th was hijacked.  Strangely it had nothing to do with the Solstice.  Also of note this is why we have Sundays.  Constantine decreed that sundays be a day of rest.  A direct effect of Sol Invictus we feel to this day.

You are right about the Sol Invictis matter. But in Roman times, it was connected to the solstice because it was celebrated on the third day after the victory of the Sun god over the darkness, which is basically three days after the solstice (you need one or two days to realize you are "over the hump - the victory - then three days.

As for the days of the week, their Greek/Roman source is even greater in French:

Lun -di = Luna dies , day of the moon goddess.
Mar -di = Mars dies, day of the god Mars
Mercre -di = Mercure dies, day of the god Mercury
Jeu -di = Jupiter dies
Vendre -di = Venus dies
Same di = Saturnus dies

Interestingly enough, di -manche is not connected to any god in French  ;D

The only thing that can be said of the "religions of the book" is that they all have something in common with today's Hollywood: They lack imagination so when you study them carefully, you start to notice how much they borrowed from everything else that existed around them at the time.  ;D

 

[Remius]

:subbies:

And a Good Yule to all....

Having grown up in a mongrel household (English Episcopalian father and Scots Presbyterian mother) I can vouch that in the 60's my Scots grandparents virtually ignored Christmas in their own home (though they they weren't spare on presents).  Christmas was more of an English thing.

Hmn. So I looked into it a bit more.  Seems that Presbyterians never accepted the 25th as being the day Christ was born and even banned Christmas for centuries being celebrated that day.  Seems that they preferred evidence based worship  ;D

 

[jollyjacktar]

My favorite day today.  It's great that until the summer solstice every day will have more daylight.  Yay!