For our distant ancestors, of all the points around the wheel of the year, the Winter Solstice, falling just days before Christmas, was the most significant of the eight ancient festivals. We know this because five thousand years ago when they built their stone circles and burial chambers, they aligned them with the rising sun at the Winter Solstice.

Even today we can still see the importance of this festival, because culturally we celebrate it more than any of the others, as Christmas. And it was the Winter Solstice that first drew me to the wheel of the year and the natural cycles of the Earth.

I was brought up in the Christian faith and loved performing in the nativity play each year. But I loved another story even more: Father Christmas riding through the night sky on a reindeer-drawn sleigh, delivering presents with his elves. On Christmas morning, I delighted at seeing he had eaten the mince pie I’d left and the reindeer had taken the carrot.

For many years I didn’t see anything odd about the two stories not relating to each other in any way. But as I grew older, I started to question why there were two very dominant and different narratives surrounding this time of year.

The moment when I decided to seek an answer came about when I was standing in a long post office queue. Three cashiers were in fancy dress: an elf, Santa, and a reindeer. I thought, if an alien landed now, I’d have no idea how to explain why this is. So, I started investigating, and surprisingly, everything fell into place quite quickly.

Solstice revelations

The Winter Solstice is the moment in the year when one of the Earth’s poles, the north pole, is tilted furthest away from the sun. Here in the northern hemisphere, it happens between 20^th and 22^nd December. This year it is precisely 3.03pm on the 21^st, the shortest day of the year. If you are in the southern hemisphere, this will be the moment of your Summer Solstice, with your Winter Solstice being between 20^th and 23^rd June.

For a few days, the Sun rises and sets at its most southerly point on the horizon, appearing to stand still. This is the origin of the word ‘solstice,” derived from the Latin sol (sun) and sistere (to stand still). On the fourth morning, the Sun rises slightly to the right and begins its journey back toward the Summer Solstice. It is this moment, after the pause on the horizon, that our distant ancestors celebrated: the Sun was seen as reborn, and a new cycle had begun.

Our ancestors were acutely aware of the seasonal cycles tied to their agricultural year and survival. At this time, they would be sitting in the dark with nothing but the flicker of the fire for two-thirds of their day. The rebirth of the sun was something to celebrate. 

The Christmas story

So, how did our traditional Christmas celebrations arise? Early Christians overlaid their own traditions onto older solstice celebrations. The rebirth of the sun fit perfectly with the birth of the Son of God, but the old stories couldn’t be replaced, so the two narratives settled side by side, and still exist today.

So, what do these strange traditions mean? Who is Santa? Why the reindeer? The holly and ivy, the Christmas tree, and the Christmas lights? They all have fascinating origins. Hold on to your seatbelts for this quick canter through.

Some of the iconic imagery we attribute to Santa can be traced back to the shamanic practices of the indigenous peoples of Siberia: the magical figure travelling through the sky, the flying reindeer, the North Star, the pine tree, and the idea of entering the home through the chimney. These stories would have travelled down through Scandinavia into Europe with the Vikings, who were also responsible for bringing us the Yule log – a huge log they would burn during these longest nights to symbolise the return of the light.

The Vikings also brought us the twelve days of Christmas, as a prolonged celebration of the rebirth of the Sun. Later, the Victorians, with their love of northern, wintry, magical imagery, absorbed many of these traditions without realising how deep their shamanic origins ran, and they became part of our culture.

The holly, ivy and mistletoe are among our oldest solstice traditions here in Britain, going back to Celtic times, when people brought evergreens into their homes to cheer themselves through the long winter. The Druids held mistletoe as especially sacred, and the berries of these plants - red, white and black - carry the powerful colour symbolism that runs throughout Celtic myth.

Our Christmas traditions are a collective pot of influences, from the desert religion of the Middle East all the way up to the tundra of Lapland!

Finding meaning