The Longest Night Of The Year

2010.12.21 Winter Solstice
Days Remaining: 161

01. I think, as I've mentioned before, that the historical origins of Christmas have to do with marking time, particularly the Winter Solstice. That's tonight, at approximately 1138pm EST. We'll be as far away from the sun at that moment as we ever will in the solar year. Tonight is the Longest Night, the moment when the solar cycle reaches its furthest declension and the new cycle begins.

02. In my perfect world this is the night we'd celebrate Christmas (in fact, when Julius Caesar reformed the Roman Calendar, the Winter Solstice was on 25 December, which is why that date was the festival of Natalis Solis Invictus ("birth of the invincible sun"), and that festival is why the Christians in the 4th Century picked that day to celebrate the birth of Jesus (whose actual birthdate is completely unknown). In fact, since I'm not a Christian, this is the night I'd celebrate Yule. Since human calendars have drifted in relation to the astronomical calendar (which is far more reliable), I prefer to base festival dating on astronomical cycles. So tonight, for me, is the actual holiday. I'm not doing anything to celebrate it as such, but I paused at sunset as we move into the longest night, and if I weren't so tired I'd try to wake up tomorrow for sunrise as the astronomical new year starts.

03. Robertson Davies, the Canadian author, was Master of a college (Canadian universities are organized like British universities into colleges as housing, administrative and pedagogical units, unlike US universities where they're primarily administrative and disciplinary in nature) which had an annual holiday party (before everyone went home) called "Gaudy Night." He wrote a series of short stories (one each year) that were read aloud at the party, and they were collected after he died. Interestingly, in light of my earlier post about A Christmas Carol, they were all ghost stories, though none of them were Dickensian in character or tone.

04. The term gaudy is derived from the Latin gaudium and Old French gaudie, meaning "merry-making" or "enjoyment." There is a medieval carol entitled "Gaudete" which is the imperative form of the verb meaning "Rejoice!" In my imaginary alternate holiday, one of the other names for 21 December is Gaudy Night, the night for rejoicing as the year rolls on and anew. The longest night should be full of ghosts, singing, feasting and visiting. We should burn candles and bonfires as we appreciate the darkness for making the light all the brighter.

05. And, conveniently, we have 12 days from now until New Year's, so we could even have 12 days of Yuletide, officially.

06. And that's about it. Happy New Year to the Sun, and to us all.