hiidenkonttibeta

It’s Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year. In Oulu, the length of this day is 3 hours 35 minutes – the Sun rises at 10:28 and sets at 14:03. The Earth starts getting closer to Sun and days start getting longer. But the real winter is only starting now in here. January and February are our coldest months – but cold weather also means more white snow and lack of clouds, so we’ll get a lot more light during our days than we had during our long dark snowless Autumn.

Winter Solstice is, of course, the original reason for celebrations at this time of the year. Various cultures had religious festivals around the time of the Solstice. The Germanic people had Yule, which the Swedish-speaking Scandinavians call Jul and we Finns call Joulu. The Romans had Saturnalia and they celebrated Mitra, the God of the Sun. Winter Solstice is Mitra’s birthday – and in Julian calendar Winter Solstice is on 25th of December.

There are those who still celebrate the rebirth of the Sun, with something like this piece (from some random web page):

Sytytän taskukokoisen auringon ja toivotan hyvää talvipäivänseisausta.