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Winter Solstice Holidays
This Winter Solstice episode is the first episode in our Holidays series! In this episode, we discuss the origins of the winter solstice celebrations and look at traditions surrounding these practices. Listeners will learn about how these festivities were celebrated and how they influenced past and modern human culture.
Sources:
- https://www.sapiens.org/culture/winter-solstice-celebrations/
- https://www.sapiens.org/culture/gift-wrapping-reason/
Transcript:
Claire: Hello and welcome back to Anthro.MP3! The episode you’re about to hear is a part of our holidays series. In this series, we’ll learn about many holidays across the year during their festive seasons. So get into the celebratory mood and enjoy the episode.
(music)
Anna: Hello friends and welcome back to Anthro.MP3. Merry Christmas, happy Hanukkah, or just generally, happy holidays, whatever you may be celebrating. We’re students from UMass who love anthropology. Anthrohub is a website we help run that’s full of all things Anthro. Make sure to check it out to look at some incredible blog posts and creative works made by students from our school and others. My name is Anna, and I’ll be one of your hosts for today’s episode.
Claire: And hi, my name is Claire, and I’ll be your other host for today. So we just wanted to start by chatting a little about the winter solstice and the celebration surrounding that because it is that time of year. So what I have found out is that winter solstice celebrations actually stem from early Mayan tradition. We’re not quite sure when exactly these celebrations began. But we do know that the sun was revered due to how essential its cycle is and was in terms of relation to the growing and harvesting seasons. So you know something that really supported the life the agricultural was and is still very, very important to keeping our people alive. So basically, the solstice was an important calendar marking, and the sun was seen as a god or a symbol or artifact of a deity in many cultures, not just in the Mayan. So, you know, we see Apollo in Greek, in the Roman culture, or Helios, in just the Greek, these great big men carrying the sun across the sky in this gorgeous carriage with their golden winged horses. And it’s just these really great symbols, I suppose. And Helios was a Titan, not one of our, you know, revered Olympians that you typically think of. And in Egyptian culture, we see Ra. Amaterasu in the Japanese. Sól in the Norse, the list, you know, goes on. So celebrations around the winter solstice were held in honor of these Sun deities and other harvest-oriented gods and goddesses. So especially in the Greek, we see, you know, Persephone and Demeter, with just their stories of springtime and winter and just the harvest in general, and supporting again, like I said, these cultures through this agricultural importance, which is very, very interesting, I think. So it’s sort of this idea of celebrating the winter solstice in their name, to ask for favor going forward in the coming year, and support. And you know, you see a lot of religions past and present center their celebrations around these shortened days beginning to lengthen again after the solstice, symbolizing rebirth. So celebrating this rebirth is thought to bring good fortune in the coming solar year, and it is this celebration of the certainty that,you know, this life giving light will always return. And I think that’s really interesting.
Anna: That is really interesting, and it reminds me a lot of more, like, don’t say modern, but more religious, like celebrations around this time, like Christmas is the 25th not the 21st but sort of falls around the winter solstice, and that has to do with the birth of Christ. So literally, the giving of like, life and goodness in the Christian religion, as well as Hanukkah, which is literally also celebrating the gift of light. You know, the oil burned for eight days instead of one. And so the people were able to, like, survive longer. So I think that’s really interesting to see, to like, track those different histories back to the same sort of, you know…
Claire: Concept.
Anna: Concept, yeah, and I looked a little bit into Stonehenge. So Stonehenge obviously big, you know, stone monolith,
Claire: Big rocks!
Anna: Big rocks, happening. Have you ever been on the Stonehenge?
Claire: No, but I have always wanted to go.
Anna: I really wanted to go to, I went to London in the winter, and we were gonna go. And then we realized that it’s like a two hour drive to Stonehenge from London. Yeah. But so Stonehenge actually, the pinnacle stones at Stonehenge line up with the sunset on both the summer and the winter solstice, signifying, again, the connection that ancient Anglo-Saxon people had with the solstices and how they tied their harvest and their lives to the solstice as well, similar to like the ancient Mayans and a lot of different groups and they had to track the sun in order to best plan when and where to plant crops in relation to the season. And it’s actually, it’s remarkable how sophisticated a lot of these ancient societies were at tracking the sun without what we think of as like essential modern tools. And so it’s really interesting to see those different examples.
Claire: Yeah, it really is wildly interesting, especially if you, you know, you can look back at the creation of the modern calendar from the Roman Empire, and it’s just so impressive, looking back at all of the knowledge surrounding the solar and lunar cycles, and The fact that they were able to predict and know so much, and then just that they took the time to celebrate it. And that’s something that, you know, we still do today, and I just it’s really cool to think about. We can also sort of look back at Norse pagans. They celebrated the solstice through a festival that they dubbed Yule which, you know, probably, probably rings a bell. So, you know, you hear about Yule time tidings and Christmas carols. Yule logs, if you’re looking at a sweet little treat for the holidays, the list, you know, again, I think goes on. I am personally not religious, but I do celebrate Christmas with my family. So, you know, we have a lot of our little traditions. How about you?
Anna: Yeah, I also celebrate Christmas, but I’m not really religious. I think it’s kind of like a vestige of, of living in a place where Christianity is the dominant religion. I like past like, my grandparents were religious, but I think it’s kind of…
Claire: Me too, yeah.
Anna: But yeah, similar, we celebrate, like Christmas, Christmas Eve, it’s like a big family holiday, usually, you know, seeing people that you don’t normally get to see in the normal year when your lives are busy and maybe they live far away. So it’s like a nice time to come together. I think.
Claire: Yeah, I would. I definitely agree with that. Especially pre-COVID was big for my family. We, my household was the hosting household. So, you know, we used to get up and my mom and I would cook together all day, and we’d make all these Christmas cookies for our family, and now, especially, I think, sort of a good few years post-2020, and the onset of COVID, it’s sort of a good time to remember what we lost for a while there.
Anna: Yeah…
Claire: It’s, it’s really, it’s a sweet time of year. It’s it’s very heartwarming. A couple other things that my family and I do for traditions. We always burn a Bayberry taper candle, and we start it sometime in the late afternoon or early evening, and we let it burn down all night, and it usually takes quite a few hours, and at least one person has to stay up with it. We’re not allowed to blow it out. It has to go out entirely by itself. And this is just for us. It’s a superstition where it brings luck in the coming year, and if we blow it out that gets rid of the luck, or just the good energy coming into our household for the year. And something that I think is really interesting is my family and I like to go to Colonial Williamsburg sometimes. And you can actually trace the burning of the Bayberry back to Colonial America, and you can see the superstition, you know, in that area around that time, that’s really interesting.
Anna: Yeah, that’s really interesting. I’ve never heard of that.
Claire: Yeah, I didn’t realize that it wasn’t something that all families did. You know, it’s one of those moments where I was in elementary school chatting with my friend, and I was like, “Oh, well, I’m gonna have to go to bed so that Santa Claus doesn’t see me, but my mommy has to stay up with the Bayberry, so maybe she’ll see Santa.” And my friends are like: “What’s a Bayberry?”
Anna: Santa is a really interesting, like, cultural figure too, now that I think about it
Claire: True…
Anna: Like this strange, unknown man who’s also, like, super jolly and nice, who comes into your house and drops off presents, right? And if you’re good, you get presents, but if you’re bad, you get coal.
Claire: Coal, yeah. And it’s interesting to think about where St. Nicholas came from. And you know, you see that going back to Christianity as well, which is so super interesting. And I wonder when exactly that started, and all sorts of stuff.
Anna: Yeah.
Claire: The cultural traditions just, there are so many, and they go so deep. And I think it’s, again, I feel like I’m using this word a lot, but it’s so interesting.
Anna: I do know, I’m fairly certain that our cultural image of Santa, you know, jolly, big, kind of robust red suit that actually, like goes back mostly to Coca-Cola ads and like the the mid to early 20th century, they really popularized that image of Santa Claus in that way. But obviously there are like, cultural traces of that through Christianity. And I know, like, specifically in Nordic countries, they have a lot of like St. Nicholas, like Kramp…have you ever heard of Krampus?
Claire: Oh yes, yes…
Anna: Krampus is like a similar St. Nicholas figure, but is, like the evil version. And I think it’s also really cool to see how those kinds of traditions and cultural figures have come through into modern media, like the movie Krampus, which is a horror movie. I don’t know if you saw that.
Claire: I did. I totally forgot about that one!
Anna: Yeah. So it’s really interesting also, because I really like horror movies and how they like reflect our cultural fears, kind of and so how, like, our cultural fears are reflected in a movie like Krampus, I think is really interesting. But, yeah, my family also has some, like, non-religious, like traditions around Christmas. My grandfather actually passed away about 15 years ago, around Christmas time, and we, my dad and I started to every year…we might have even started before he passed away, build basically a giant wreath. So my dad is big, he’s a big DIY guy, and he got in his head, or maybe I did. I was so young that we wanted to have, like, the biggest wreath ever. Like, we wanted to, like, basically break the Guinness World Record. We didn’t, but every year we would make a at least, like, five-foot in diameter wreath out of old, like, branch cuttings. And then we would put it up and light it. And we would light it a couple days before Christmas, usually, like, around, kind of the winter solstice-y time in memory of my grandfather, because he passed away right before Christmas, and we would light a lantern and, like, put it up in memory of him, which was really, really nice. And so that’s kind of like an adjacent, like, Christmas tradition. But I think what’s really, like, central about all of these is that how they bring people together, and like, bringing people together like my family, who I don’t see all the time, or like my grandfather’s friends who, you know, have maybe we fallen out of contact with, but it’s a time when people feel like they can come together. And I think that’s really like rewarding in a lot of ways.
Claire: It is, and that’s such a sweet story, and it’s it’s really cool to hear about how the holidays are a time of coming together and remembrance in different families, and how everybody, you know, sort of celebrates this, this winter time, kindness and goodness differently. And it’s, it’s super interesting. My family, we always, we always eat fondue on Christmas Eve. And that’s just, it’s a memory that goes back quite a couple of years, and it’s something that I personally think about. And, you know, not many other people probably would, but to me, that’s just, it’s, it’s very Christmassy. It’s, it’s very holiday time. And it fills me with, you know that, that winter solstice joy, you know? It’s the light of the sun is coming into my heart.
Anna: That’s really nice.
Claire: And then, you know, going back to Christmas, you know, you have that moment of opening presents in the morning with your family, right?
Anna: Best time of the year.
Claire: Oh yeah, oh yeah. That moment where you come downstairs and the trees all lit up, and you can have a cup of hot cocoa, and your dad sitting on the couch with his coffee. And yep.
Anna: Or if you’re me, you would wake up at 5am and then wake up the rest of your family because you were so excited.
Claire: Oh, yeah. Oh, I was one of those kids. I had, like, the opposite of a curfew, or my parents the night before, I’d be like: “you’re not allowed to come in until 7am.”
Anna: And then I would go in and my brother is older than me, so he would always want to sleep in and I’d be like: “No, you can’t you have to I can’t open my presents until you do.” I was annoying.
Claire: Me too! I’m right there with you. But that makes me think the presents are such, you know, a huge cultural symbol. You think of these bright wrappings with these big bows and just, it’s interesting to wonder where exactly that came from, and from what we know it actually began well before the modern, industrial, you know, capitalist age. It’s traceable to somewhere around 1000 years ago, the Japanese began this tradition of wrapping gifts. And this actually has to do with something that social scientists call the reliquary effect. And a reliquary is something crafted to hold a relic. And this, this effect, it sort of encompasses the idea that the worth of items gifted is not necessarily intrinsic, but rather it’s socially assigned via presentation. So anyway, this tradition of gift wrapping is seen throughout the holidays, throughout religions and throughout traditions, and it’s become a trademark of any present you know. To the point where giving one on a holiday, be it, you know, Christmas, be it a birthday, be it Kwanza or Diwali, anything without any form of wrapping, at the very least, you know, a bow slapped on top it’s sometimes seen as socially improper in a lot of cultures, or rude. It’s sort of, you know, I’ve heard people talking about, if they’re given a gift without any wrapping, it almost seems like the person giving it doesn’t care as much.
Anna: Like they didn’t take the time to put on this big show of like, “Oh, what is it?” Which I think is also really interesting is that you’re not supposed to know what a present is. It’s supposed to be a mystery until you open it. And I was always, again, the annoying kid who would like, sneak into my mom’s closet and try to see what she got me. But it kind of ruins the magic, because that’s part of the magic, is that you don’t know what that person is giving you, and it’s kind of a test of how well they know you as well, which is like, kind of is an interesting cultural kind of script, of like…
Claire: It is.
Anna: Of like…I am like: “You are supposed to give me a thing and I am supposed to like that thing, but you can’t ask me.” Like, there’s this whole like, kind of like, like, script that we have that’s like, feigned, like, surprise, almost like “Oh, don’t get me a gift.” And then somebody gets you a gift, and you’re like, “of course they were gonna get me a gift,” because that would be rude if they didn’t.
Claire: Exactly, and you know, again, you see this reliquary effect where it has to be wrapped but, oh, no, I can’t give you any hints on what I want, but you should know me well enough…
Anna: Exactly.
Claire: …to give me something that you know I would enjoy. And, and then you can, sort of, you can, sort of, like, leave hints, like, especially in the modern day, you have, you know, your Amazon wish lists and stuff like that. And it’s just very interesting, especially in, you know, our modern capitalist times. But again, I think it’s just so cool how it all ties back to these original celebrations of just the light coming back like and life and the winter solstice and what it symbolized. And you know, these, these festivals are still definitely as we’re talking about, celebrated in the modern day. And you know, they’ve been definitely edited a bit to fit modern beliefs and lifestyles. And the reasons for these celebrations today may be different from, you know, Mayan celebrations of the BCE (Before Common Era) years, but you know, celebrations are still thrown nonetheless.
Anna: Yeah!
Claire: It’s really, it’s just so cool.
Anna: Yeah, I think it also, to add to that, has a lot to do with kind of community traditions and building community. You know, the solstice, historically, as we’ve talked about, is a time when communities would come together to celebrate and create sort of this collective joy. And we know that those feelings of shared joy and happiness are what builds community and help us bond to each other, and then that makes us, you know, more dependent on each other and more able to care for each other. And so when we come together in these times of happiness and rituals, and there’s, you know, food and dancing and love, that makes it easier for then us to be bonded to each other when the times aren’t as good. And, you know, we have these sort of connections that last beyond just Christmas or just beyond the winter solstice. You know, they kind of tie us to each other for the rest of the year and strengthen our bonds to each other. And I think that’s why, you know, we talk about the Mayans and the ancient Anglo Saxons and ancient Japan is like, these traditions carry on no matter you know the context. And every, almost every region or culture or religion has this sort of like winter solstice celebration. And I think it’s because, like, we are collectively changed by celebrating together in that way. And I think that’s really, like, beautiful.
Claire: I agree. It’s, it’s this really gorgeous visual of human socialization and the, you know, this innate bond that humans have grown to have where, no matter what, no matter differences, we can all come together around the winter solstice, which has been something that has, you know, kept us alive and happy since pretty much just the dawn of humanity. And you just again see us coming together. And like you said, just it’s, again, it’s these bonds are so tangible, and then they last us through times of tumultuous change or pain or anything like that. And I think that’s really gorgeous. I think we’re coming to the end of our episode. Was there anything else that you wanted to add in?
Anna: No, I think you ended it on a great note.
Claire: Awesome! Thank you. Well, thank you all for tuning into our show today and another thanks to our team members and our collaborators with AnthroHub, especially our tech crew, to stay connected. You can find us on instagram, @anthro.mp3, and you can also find our sources, transcripts of each episode, and more in our AnthroHub show notes. So I was one of your hosts today, Claire, joined by our other host…
Anna: Anna.
Claire: …and our tech crew. If you enjoyed this episode, definitely stay tuned for upcoming ones. Keep an eye out on our Instagram for future updates on shows, specials, and events. Catch us next time and have a happy winter holiday season friends! Happy Winter Solstice! Bye…