WINTER FESTIVALS WORLDWIDE

By Mike McPhee

[Service delivered at SUC on 17 July 2016.]

Two years ago to the month, I gave a presentation on summer festivals around the world. This will be the third in the series, as I dealt with autumn celebrations at the beginning of this year. As so often happens, my research revealed all manner of things I had never heard of before.

As we all know, the Winter in any hemisphere occurs when the corresponding pole points directly away from the Sun. It results in the shortest day of the year and the entire area within the polar circle (66.50 N/S Latitude) experiences 24 hours of darkness. Due to the small eccentricity of the Earth’s orbit, the date of the northern varies between 21 and 22 (though leap years have the greatest short- term effect).

However, the precession of the Earth causes the tilted axis to turn in a circle over 26,000 years. This results in what is called the Precession of the Equinoxes, whereunder all the seasonal points move backward by a month every 2000 years. Thus, the northern Winter Solstice was in the area of 21 January when the Roman calendar was established.

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Winter feasts must have originated in the caves, if only to boost morale as our ancestors huddled around their fires, awaiting the return of longer days and warmer weather. It is impressive to note that Neolithic people could locate the position (if not the date) of the mid-winter sunrise, as seen by the alignments of passage tombs and stone circles. By that time, agrarian societies would slaughter animals to save feeding them and the ales and/or wines made from the previous harvest would be fully fermented, so the feasting should have been merry, indeed.

The Ancient Greeks and Romans had a month-long festival called , dedicated to Dionysus/Bacchus (the god of wine), ending with the Winter Solstice (25 December, by their reckoning), which in Rome was called Saturnalia. People decorated their homes with greenery and exchanged gifts, and the social norms were relaxed to permit gambling, general tomfoolery and even measured impertinence on the part of slaves. (In some cases, masters and slaves would reverse their roles, though the latter still prepared the feast that the former served them.) Togas were discarded in favour of informal dinner clothes and everyone wore the pileus (freedman’s hat). Attempts by Augustus Caesar and, later, Caligula, to shorten the festivities were met with massive revolts.

2 More ancient, though is Shab-e Yaldā, which was celebrated in Persia since at least Zoroastrian times. Commemorating the longest and darkest night of the year, it is a time for family and friends to eat, drink and read poetry until well past midnight. Traditional foods are nuts, sweetmeats and fruits, particularly pome- granates and watermelons, as their reddish hues represent the light of dawn and the glow of life. The Zoroastrians saw that night as a time when the power of the evil god, Amrihan, was at its peak, so people were advised to stay awake and in company to avoid misfortune. However, in modern Iran, the festival is largely secular and people of all religions celebrate it.

Similarly ancient is the Dōngzhì Festival, celebrated at the Winter Solstice in , Korea, Japan and Vietnam. While its vintage is unknown, its Taoist origins are evident in the principle that the flow of positive energy increases with the lengthening days. It is a time for family gatherings and honouring the ancestors, though the customs vary from place to place. In the south of China, the traditional food is , balls of flour (sometimes with fillings and often coloured), cooked and served in a sweet soup or savoury broth. The standard drink is a mildly alcoholic rice wine, unfiltered to leave some rice grains in it.

In northern China, the specialty is in the shape of ears. According to legend, , a physician during the Han Dynasty, saw that the poor had chilblains on their ears in winter and ordered his apprentices to make dumplings for them. In , there is a similar emphasis on hot nourishing food – in addition to tangyuan, they use steamed rice flour to make nine-storey cakes in the shapes of various animals as an offering to the ancestors.

3 The Buddhists of Sri Lanka celebrate the festival of Uduvapa Poya (also known as Day) at the Full Moon in December. According to tradition, was introduced there in the 3rd Century BCE by Sanghamitta, the daughter of Emperor Ashoka of , and her brother, Mahinda. Both had joined religious orders and their father sent them to Sri Lanka at the request of its king, Devanamplya Tissa. They brought with them a branch of the sacred Bodhi Tree, under which the Buddha had attained Enlightenment, which was planted at the royal capital and is still there today. The annual celebration, which was revived in 1903, is led by ten nuns and consists of prayers in the temple from sunrise till the dawn of the next day.

Returning to Europe, we find a number of pagan societies that took winter in general, and the solstice in parti- cular, very seriously. Korochun was a Slavic festival celebrated from Russia to Serbia, though the name has cognates even in Hungarian and Romanian. Again, the solstice was seen as the day when Chernabog (the Black God) and other spirits of decay and darkness were most potent. They would defeat Hors, the god of the declining old Sun, but he would be resurrected as Koleda, the new Sun, on the next day.

The Western Slavs lit bonfires in cemeteries on this night to keep their dead ancestors warm, held feasts in their honour and performed a chain-dance for Hors that is still called the horo in Bulgaria today. In a pattern that we will see across Europe, the festival was coopted by and the name is now coterminous with .

4 In Latvia and, presumably, the larger region where Baltic speakers once lived, Ziemassvētki was celebrated at the time of the solstice with a number of interesting traditions. First was towing an oak log through the village or town, whose rolling represented the solar cycle and the collection of all the failures, bad thoughts and deeds of the past year. It was then burned in a bonfire to destroy all misfortune and sorrow for a fresh start in the new year. Of course, there would then be a celebration with feasting, singing and dancing.

Another practice was masked mummers in ghostly costumes, walking from one village to another to bring blessings and drive away evil spirits. They carried scalded tree branches, whose life force was transferred to every person and animal they touched. The Balts claim to have been the first Europeans to put evergreen trees in their homes and decorate them with straw, coloured yarn, bird feathers and dried flowers and fruits.

Reputedly, the best drinkers at solstice celebrations were the whose Jul festival gave us the alternate name, ‘’, for Christmas. Viking practices are the best-known, though not all historians agree that the festivities ran from Mid-Winter to 12 January, with the feasting, drinking and sacrifices taking place over the last three days. In regions where there was still sufficient sunlight, there would also be games and contests.

In Norse mythology, the Sun was a goddess called Sól, drove a chariot across the sky on an eternal flight from the devouring wolf of darkness. The wolf is a denizen of the Underworld (Hel), representing death, and its swallowing of the Sun would have been truly evident at latitudes near the Arctic Circle.

5 While the is arguably of Nordic origin, the connection between our Christmas hams and the Yule boar is less evident.

While there are no records to this effect, it is thought that the date of Christmas was chosen because it was three days after the Winter Solstice; i.e., the ‘death’ of the year. However, we do know that Christ’s Mass was celebrated in Rome by or before 354 CE and in Constantinople from 379. Today, some denominations hold a special mass, known as ‘’, on 22 December.

The period from the fourth Sunday before Christmas is known as Advent, a reference to both the coming of the Nativity and the Second Coming of Christ. Traditions include keeping an Advent Calendar, one flap of which is opened each day.

There is also an Advent Wreath, laid flat with four candles in the periphery and one in the middle. One of the former is lit on the first Sunday, two on the second, and so on; the last, usually white, is lit on Christmas Eve.

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In the Early Middle Ages, the Feast of the Epiphany on 06 January was the dominant Christmastide celebra- tion, commemorating the revelation of the Son of God to the world. In the Western tradition, that revelation was to the Magi who had come in search of him, whereas the Orthodox churches regard the Epiphany as Jesus’ baptism as an adult, after which he commenced his public mission. In any case, the period between Christ’s Mass and Epiphany became known as the Twelve Days of Christmas.

Shortly after these festivities were put in place by the early Christian churches, Bishop Nikolaos of Myra (in what is now Turkey) died in 343 and many legends arose regarding his miracles and generosity to children. In one such story, he dropped a purse of gold coins down a chimney into a young maiden’s stocking that was drying before the fire!

Nicholas was made a saint and, in 1087, his remains were rescued from invading Seljuk Turks by Italian sailors and re-interred in Bari. Claims of miracles affecting the remains raised great interest and St. Nicholas’ Day (06 December) became the time for children to receive gifts, complete with the parades and pageants of other special Feast Days. The Catholic Church had banned gift-giving at Christmas as a pagan practice, but it had to accept St. Nicholas (and the gifts of the Magi) as an excuse to accommodate the public will.

7 St. Nicholas’ Day is still celebrated in many parts of Europe, though the specific customs differ from country to country. It is most popular in the Low Countries, Germany and Central Europe, though it is also celebrated (less the children’s element) in Albania, Bulgaria, Serbia, and Lebanon. Children in The Netherlands put out clogs the night before containing hay and carrots for the saint’s horse; in other countries, boots or shoes are used, or the gifts may be placed under the children’s pillows. In public appearances, such as at schools, Saint Nicholas often has a demonic companion who brings switches or rods for children who have been naughty.

It can be seen that Saint Nicholas is portrayed as a cross between a bishop and the more modern Santa Claus. However, the German tradition was that the gifts were brought by the Christkindl (little Christ child), yet that name somehow became corrupted in English to ‘Kris Kringle’ and conflated with Santa Claus.

The Jewish festival of Hanukkah celebrates the rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem in 165 BCE, after the Maccabean Revolt overthrew the Greek rulers that had governed much of the Middle East since the death of Alexander the Great. According to tradition, the Temple needed to be thoroughly cleansed after being used for sacrifices to Zeus and, after this was done, a one-day supply of consecrated oil lasted for eight days until a new supply could be obtained.

8 For this reason, Hanukkah lasts for eight days and nights, during which an additional candle on the menorah is lit on each succeeding night. (The central candle is lit on every night.) Gifts are exchanged on every night and the meals are all special ones, often fried or baked in olive oil. Due to the vagaries of the Hebrew lunar calendar, the festival can start any time between late November and late December. Special services are held in the synagogue on all Sabbaths that fall during the period and also on the final day.

New Year’s Day was established by the Romans as 01 January in about 450 BCE. The name of the month, Januarius, is derived from the Latin word, ‘ianua’, meaning ‘door, but it is also associated with the god, Janus. Seen as the god of beginnings, transitions and time, he was depicted as having two faces – one looking to the future and the other to the past. However, the Catholic Church disestablished 01 January in 567 CE and, at various times and places, the year was seen to begin on Christmas Day, 01 March, the Feast of the Annunciation on 25 March (i.e., nine months before Christmas) and Easter.

New Year’s Day was restored to 01 January by the Gregorian calendar, which was proclaimed in 1582. Most Catholic countries adopted it immediately and some Protestant lands accepted the new date well before they adopted the more important parts of the Gregorian reform. The United Kingdom acceded to both aspects as of 1752, abandoning 25 March and deleting eleven days in the previous September – thus, the year of 1751 in the entire British Empire had only 282 days in it!

9 One of the oldest and most famous New Year’s Eve celebrations is the Scottish festival of . While its origins are as obscure as the name, it is thought to be derived from Gaelic and Nordic winter festi- vities. Hogmanay returned to prominence after the Protestant Reformation, when Christmas was downgraded by the Presbyterian Church as a Papist practice.

New Year’s Eve is now an international event, even celebrated in countries that have different calendars of their own. However, the tradition of massive firework displays was a 20th Century development, with cities around the world vying to outdo each other. (This picture is of Auckland, the first major city to see the dawn of the New Year.)

As a general conclusion, it can be seen that winter festivals are not lugubrious occasions, even in climates where that season can be truly depressing. Rather, they often constitute a time of reflection on the year gone by and they always express the anticipation of spring and hope for the year to come.

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