Winter Solstice - the shortest day and longest night of the year - is here in the Northern hemisphere. Those in the Southern hemisphere are today enjoying their summer solstice and their longest day!!
So, from tomorrow, our days will gradually start to get longer and theirs shorter.

The changing day length, and the polar days and nights, happens because the Earth rotates on a tilted axis. If the Earth rotated perpendicularly to the suns rays, our days would always be the same length and the poles would receive some sunlight all year round - a very different world that would be!!

For those who dislike the darkness of the late autumn months, this is the time when we can look forward to the lengthening days that will soon bring spring back again.

Today is also the start of the pagan festival of Yule or Yuletide, which is 12 days long.
This pagan festival was supplanted with Christmas by the early Christians in an attempt to convert everyone to the new religion while keeping the timing and essence of the festivities they were used to. Most scholars believe Jesus was actually born in the spring.
And many Yule traditions were carried into Christmas:

1. The Twelve Days Of Christmas

2. The Yule log, which is traditionally a real log burnt at Christmas although many these days are edible cakes instead.

3. The use of a Christmas tree (trees being sacred to many pagan faiths), and decorating homes with holly and mistletoe. Mistletoe is a particularly important plant to pagans, and it is believed to represent fertility, hence the tradition that couples kiss under it.

4. The Yule Goat, which is a straw goat used mostly for decoration these days in Scandinavian countries.
   The goat has always been a powerful pagan symbol and the last sheaf of straw from the harvest was supposed to have magical properties.
   Some Nordic towns and cities have huge straw goats in their marketplaces, while the people hang little ornamental straw goats from their Christmas tree or have small freestanding ones.

5. The Yule Boar - still carried on in the traditional Christmas ham.

6. And Yule singing or wassailing, which was originally a feasting and drinking type of song, but was morphed into Carol singing in the new Christmas celebrations. Hence the referral to wassailing in some older Christmas carols.

But there is an additional event this December Solstice, a Great conjunction between Saturn and Jupiter where they line up when viewed from the Earth to appear as one big star - a modern day Star Of Bethlehem.
As Jupiter takes 12 of our Earth years to orbit the sun and Saturn takes 30, more distant Great Conjunctions occur between Saturn and Jupiter about every 20 years, but this will be the closest Great Conjunction since 16 July, 1623.

The planets will become visible in the twilight following sunset today, close to the southwestern horizon for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere (the Western horizon for those in the Southern Hemisphere).
They themselves will set a couple of hours after that, so we have to hope for clear skies in that direction at that time.

I hope you all get a glimpse of this rare event, and may your solstice, be it winter or summer, be a good one!!

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