Keeping the Long Midwinter

How to celebrate the year's darkest days

Hello,

It has happened already: the people who celebrate Christmas are complaining about Christmas. It’s too stressful; it’s one big anticlimax; we never liked turkey anyway. We hate the way that this whole season seems to whip our adjacent children into a frenzy of greed and commercialism, and we hate ourselves for stoking that particular fire. The whole thing is just too much, and we cannot wait for it to be over so that normality can return. 

I used to feel like this too. Christmas was an absurdly frenetic build-up to one, long, terrible day, when everything was disappointing, and when I was usually so exhausted that I was chugging cold remedies in the kitchen and counting down the hours until I could go to bed. It was all so mindless, an exercise in obligation rather than joy. But a few years ago, I paused and rethought my approach. I was certain that this time could be better - restorative instead of draining; reorienting instead of soul-destroying - and I started by looking back in time to understand why this moment in the year feels so important to us.

Christians traditionally didn’t think that Christ was born at this time of year at all; for centuries, the Church tried to discourage and suppress midwinter festivities. But the urge to gather and celebrate at the darkest time of year proved irresistible. Christmas is a pragmatic response to a far more ancient impulse. Whatever your belief system, it’s possible to reconnect with that spirit, rather than our tattered contemporary haze. Instead of focusing in on one, big day, I now celebrate the long midwinter, beginning with the solstice and ending at New Year. 

The winter solstice is often seen as the pivot on which the year rotates, the shortest day followed by the longest night after which the days grow longer again. But that doesn’t tell the whole story. The solstice is a pause at the darkest part of the year. Our ancestors, who lived in the absence of clock time, observed that the sun stood still in the sky for several days, rising and setting at its southernmost position. This original meaning is revealed in the Latin etymology of the word solstice: sol stit. In the unnerving depths of winter’s dark, the sun stands still.

We know that those moments have always felt significant. Across the ancient world, temples, cities and stone formations aligned with the solstices, although their exact meanings have been lost to time. I have heard it said that the ancient rites of midwinter were an attempt to restart the sun again, to push it back into motion like a stalled car. Perhaps, but I doubt there was ever a moment when humans didn’t know that the sun would recommence its travels. The knowledge has always been continuous, passed between us, intrinsic to our humanity. We know that midwinter will pass. We know that it is, in fact, fleeting. But each year, we must do battle with the irrational part of ourselves that tells us that it is not. 

It is possible, I think, to change this, to restore our connection to the pause in the year, and to learn to embark on the journey it offers to us. To do this, we need to return to an older understanding of this moment. It is not a build-up to a single day followed by a season of atonement, but instead a time between times, this season within a season. We know it as Yule, the Northern European winter festival that pre-dated Christianity; as the Twelve Days of Christmas, the Slavic Koliada, the Celtic Omen Days. Midwinter is a process not an event; it is lived, experiential. When we make space for it, we allow ourselves to be changed.

Here are five suggestions for keeping the long midwinter.

Celebrate the hibernal solstice

The winter solstice traditionally marks the shortest day and the longest night of the year, usually falling between the 21st and 22nd December. I like to see it as a gateway into a period of stillness, a pause in the year. It is best celebrated outside if you can bear it, wrapped up warm with a hot drink in your hand, watching the sun set on the shortest day, or the sun rise the morning after. I like to do both. This is a good moment for a fire, a way of taking over the sun’s work at the point in the year when it is pale and weak, almost vulnerable. 

This is a calm, sober(ing) moment in my year, a definite point of transition into a different state. Whether you watch the sun disappear below the horizon, or peek up again the next morning, remember to say, ‘We have turned the year,’ and to hug the people you love.

After the sun has set, I  lay on a solar feast, a series of plates with sun-shaped food (think star-shaped cookies, pies or tarts, or salads of red chicory with leaves pointing outward). It’s my way of giving thanks to the sun as it rests.

Remember your ancestors

For many of us, the festive period brings an uncomfortable reminder of who is missing: loved ones are missing from the dining table, and family traditions drift away without the anchorage of the people who taught them to us in the first place. This is a time of year when many people will visit churchyards and cemeteries with flowers, and I’ve noticed that my local church is holding a ‘Blue Christmas’ service this year, to welcome people who are feeling more lonely than jolly as the year draws to an end. 

I think we can forget that, even if we are not in the first, acute throes of grief, this remains a good time of year to remember those who went before us. The long, dark nights of midwinter open up liminal space, and a sense that the dead are closer to us than usual. My family often gets out our box of old photos in the run-up to Christmas, and spend some time poring over them, reminiscing, and rehearsing the names of those who are long-gone. Alone, I often light a candle for each of my missing grandparents, just to keep their memory alive for another year. 

Lest you think that this is a modern affectation, it seems that midwinter was always been a time when we evoke the departed; look out for my special long read on Saturday about the ancient ‘Mother’s Night’. 

Bring in the green

There is a longstanding tradition of bringing evergreens into your house at midwinter, starting at the solstice, freshening dark, stale rooms. I think this has a deeper significance than mere decoration. First of all, it gets us out of the house to collect the vegetation in the first place, encouraging us to drink in what’s left of the sunlight, and to refocus our minds for a while. 

But there is a deeper significance to our winter greening: we are bringing the divine into our homes. The verdant, wild gods of winter are symbolised in the flourishing holly, the brave pines. By cutting them respectfully and arranging them around our doorways and shelves, we are tapping into some of their robustness and resilience. 

Don’t forget the mistletoe: the Druids thought that it was divine, due to its habit of growing in the oak: ‘it is the notion with them that everything that grows on it has been sent immediately from heaven, and that the mistletoe upon it is a proof that the tree has been selected by God himself as an object of his especial favour,’ wrote Pliny the Elder in CE 77.

Turn the tables

Deep in midwinter, there is a long tradition of letting children take over, upsetting our adult sensibilities with their spirit of general chaos and disorder. This may, on the face of it, seem unappealing, but it’s actually part of the symbolism of this interstitial time: this is a process of rebirth, and we sometimes need our staid old habits to be tested. 

In the church calendar, December 28th is Childermass or The Feast of the Holy Innocents, marking the slaughter of the innocents. In England, this used to be a day when children were allowed to play in the church aisles. In Spain, it’s a day when children play practical jokes and in Alicante, where my mother lives, the Fiesta dels Enfarinats takes place - a battle of eggs, flour and firecrackers. A slightly gentler alternative might be to allow children to plan the day from start to finish, or to go out for a special outing to burn off some of that energy.

This can also be a sombre day, too - a day to remember the suffering of children across the world in this time of terrible conflict and entrenched inequality. It would be a good day, if you can, to make a donation to a charity supporting children, or to set an intention to help disadvantaged young people in some way.

Stretch the feast

Keeping the long midwinter lets you think about the feast in a different way - as something to be balanced across many days, rather than crammed into a single day. For me, this feels so much lighter (including in the sense of ‘more digestible’). We can eat a series of good things over a number of days, and there is no need to atone in the aftermath. 

There is so much beautiful freshness to be devoured at this time of year: bitter salad leaves, sharp citrus, winter greens at their most delicious. I love the soups and broths of this time just as much as the hearty roasts, but I also love the invitation to graze on good things such as dried fruit and freshly-cracked nuts. This is a time of year when a slice of Christmas cake constitutes a meal, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. 

My long midwinter closes with a vigil for the sun at New Year - not a party, but an evening sat around a fire that echoes the one I held on the solstice. Except this time, I burn my Christmas tree, which is my way of closing that festive period and moving on to the next phase (if you’ve not burned pine before: stand well back!). By the end of the evening, usually just H and I are left, nursing the fire, and talking in a way that we never manage at any other time in the year. The next morning, we wake clear-headed and the world feels new. Then, there is usually a swim in cold water, and a long lunch with friends, with napping very much encouraged. The world will kick into gear soon enough, but for now, we can enjoy the last of the delicious slowness that we fostered at midwinter. 

This week, I’ll be posting something every day to mark this very special time of year. Make sure you’re subscribed to catch it all!

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