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For thousands of years, our ancestors found solace in the winter solstice. Today, that belief is still reflected in the astonishing sight of the sun setting on Orkney's Maeshowe tomb. Located 10 miles off Scotland's north-eastern coast, the Orkney islands are a treasure trove of history, from the famous Neolithic village Skara Brae to the hauntingly beautiful Ring of Brodgar – a spellbinding stone circle that was a site of ritual and ceremony. However, when I visited another of Orkney's famous prehistoric sites, the Maeshowe tomb, my first impression was of an unremarkable green mound surrounded by a ditch. Despite...

Archeologists say they have traced the origins of the first Christmas to be celebrated on 25 December, 300 years before the birth of Christ. The original event marked the consecration of the ancient world's largest sun god statue, the 34m tall, 200 ton Colossus of Rhodes. It has long been known that 25 December was not the real date of Christ's birth and that the decision to turn it into Jesus's birthday was made by Constantine, the Roman Emperor, in the early 4th century AD. But experts believe the origins of that decision go back to 283 BC, when, in...

Pagan worshippers, who braved freezing dawn temperatures to celebrate the winter solstice at Stonehenge, were dismayed to discover they had turned up on the wrong day . . . Pagan leader Arthur Pendragon said: "It is the most important day of the year for us . . ."

The winter solstice sunrise will stream live this year from inside the passage tomb of Newgrange. The winter solstice is an astronomical phenomenon marking the shortest day and the longest night of the year, occurring on December 21st or 22nd in the Northern Hemisphere. At sunrise on the shortest day of the year, for 17 minutes, direct sunlight can enter the Newgrange monument to illuminate the chamber of the Stone Age tomb through a small opening above its entrance known as the ‘roof box’. With the chamber currently closed to the public in light of Covid-19, the event can be...

Break out the flashlights. When a full lunar eclipse takes place on the shortest day of the year, the planet may just get awfully dark. The upcoming Dec. 21 full moon -- besides distinguishing itself from the others in 2010 by undergoing a total eclipse -- will also take place on the same date as the solstice (the winter solstice if you live north of the equator, and the summer solstice if you live to the south). Winter solstice is the shortest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere and marks the official beginning of winter. The sun is...

The December solstice happens at the same instant for everyone, everywhere on Earth – and this year the solstice occurs tomorrow, on Thursday December 21st at 16:28 GMT. The winter solstice happens every year when the Sun reaches its most southerly declination of -23.5 degrees. In other words, it is when the North Pole is tilted farthest away from the Sun, delivering the fewest hours of sunlight of the year. The Sun is directly overhead of the Tropic of Capricorn in the Southern Hemisphere during the December solstice and is closer to the horizon than at any other time in the year, meaning shorter...

Yule is observed on the day of the Winter Solstice. Also known as Jul, Yule predates the Christmas holiday by thousands of years. There is some debate as to the origin of the word Yule. Some linguists suggest the word is derived from “Iul”, the Anglo-Saxon word for wheel. This makes a connection to a Celtic calendar, the Wheel of the Year. In the Norse culture, “Jul” refers to the god, Odin. Odin was celebrated during Yule as well. Yule celebrations included bonfires, decorating with holly, mistletoe and the boughs of evergreen trees, ritual sacrifices, feasts and gift giving. Do...

Explanation: Can you find which day is the winter solstice? Each panel shows one day. With 360 movie panels, the sky over (almost) an entire year is shown in time lapse format as recorded by a video camera on the roof of the Exploratorium museum in San Francisco, California. The camera recorded an image every 10 seconds from before sunrise to after sunset and from mid-2009 to mid-2010. A time stamp showing the local time of day is provided on the lower right. The videos are arranged chronologically, with July 28 shown on the upper left, and January 1 located...

Stonehenge was damaged during the Winter Solstice, with chewing gum stuck to the ancient monument, it has been disclosed. A report The Heritage Journal also revealed graffiti was sprayed on the stones, people tried to light fires on them and someone dripped a line of oil on several of them in December. Conservationists are calling for a ban to be put in place preventing people from walking among the stones on both the longest and shortest days of the year. It comes as it emerged volunteers and staff at the site were "left in tears" following the last summer solstice...

Today, you might already know, is the winter solstice. That means for people living in the Northern Hemisphere, it's the longest night of the year. However, as science blogger Colin Schultz points out, tonight will also be the longest night ever. At any location in the Northern Hemisphere, in other words, tonight's period of darkness will be slightly longer than any other, ever — at least, since the planet started spinning right around the time it was first formed some 4.5 billion years ago. The reason is that the rotation of the Earth is slowing over time. Every year, scientists...

Fairy tales and believing in Father Christmas could cause children harm.This is according to controversial biologist Richard Dawkins who warned an audience at the Cheltenham Science Festival about the dangers of make-believe. In typically incendiary style, Dawkins suggested it was 'pernicious to instil in a child the view that the world is shaped by supernaturalism.'The 73-year-old acknowledged that the appeal of fairytales lay in their magic but believes they may be causing more harm than we think.He also questioned whether we should let children believe in the myth of Father Christmas at all.'Is it a good thing to go along...

O Holy night! Yes, a silent night! and, it came upon a midnight clear. Christmas, it would seem, is a festival of the mid night. Jesus is born when it is dark, dark midnight. We are sure of it. And why not?Even though we are not told the exact hour of his birth we are sure it must have been night. Scripture does say that the Shepherds who heard the glad tidings were keeping watch over their flock “by night” (cf Luke 2:9). Further the Magi sought him by the light of a star, and stars are seen at night,...

Explanation: If you went outside at exactly the same time every day and took a picture that included the Sun, how would the Sun's position change? With great planning and effort, such a series of images can be taken. The figure-8 path the Sun follows over the course of a year is called an analemma. Yesterday, the Winter Solstice day in Earth's northern hemisphere, the Sun appeared at the bottom of the analemma. Analemmas created from different latitudes would appear at least slightly different, as well as analemmas created at a different time each day. With even greater planning and...

NEW HYDE PARK, N.Y., Aug. 13 — The temperature in the room was over 90, and the crowd was angry. The topic at this regular August meeting of the school board: what else? Christmas. When most people complain about the Christmas season beginning earlier and earlier each year, they do not usually mean the kind of kick-start that took place in this Long Island town on Monday night when more than 250 people showed up to demand that the name of the annual Christmas Concert not be changed to Winter Concert. And that was just to make a point —...

Religion News Solstice rite held early at Stonehenge Dec 22, 2006 LONDON, England (UPI) -- Around 60 people turned up to celebrate the Winter Solstice at Stonehenge Thursday - on the wrong day. After negotiating with site managers, the crowd performed traditional solstice activities and left peacefully. One reveller, who wished to remain anonymous, said: 'We formed a ring and held hands, and touched the stones. The man with the green cloak was there. But there were an awful lot of red faces,' she said. The Pagan Winter Solstice celebration is one of the oldest winter celebrations in the world....

A thread of the Reclaiming Tradition of Witchcraft, located in the Fingerlakes region of New York State. RitualsActionsTools for ActivistsClassesBlog Reclaiming Tradition WitchcraftWitchcampsReclaiming Resources Upcoming Rituals WINTER SOLSTICE 2005 Workshop, Community Ritual, and Potluck Feast Sunday, December 18th at the Foundation of Light 391 Turkey Hill Road, Ithaca, NYflyer to print "Alone, awesome, complete within Herself, the Goddess, She whose name cannot be spoken, floated in the abyss of the outer darkness, before the beginning of all things. As she looked into the curved mirror of black space, She saw by her own light her radiant reflection, and fell...

Maeshowe winter solstice as viewed by Neolithic man CAROLINE WICKHAM-JONESMaeshowe winter solstice as viewed by Neolithic manMaeshowe is managed by Historic Scotland. Picture: Charles Tait Photographic THE GREAT mound of Maeshowe has dominated the skyline of Orkney for almost 5,000 years. It is a spectacular sight and a visit to the chambered tomb provides one of the highlights for visitors to the Orkney islands. Today, as we stoop to enter and walk down the low 11 metre passage to the chamber with its massive stonework, we are reminded of the ingenuity of those original builders. Its apparent uniformity masks a...

The sun sets above the Yenisei river in the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk, December 21, 2004. The Northern Hemisphere's winter solstice, the shortest day of the year was Tuesday, when the sun was directly over the tropic of Capricorn. (REUTERS/Ilya Naymushin)

- We're too late! It's already been here. - Mulder, I hope you know what you're doing. - Look, Scully, just like the other homes: Douglas fir, truncated, mounted, transformed into a shrine; halls decked with boughs of holly; stockings hung by the chimney, with care. - You really think someone's been here? - Someone or some THING. - Mulder, over here - it's a fruitcake. - Don't touch it! Those things can be lethal. - It's O.K. There's a note attached: "Gonna find out who's naughty and nice." - It's judging them, Scully. It's making a list. - ...