December 21, 12:11 p.m. EST is the 2013 Winter Solstice here in Boston, and it's a great reason to celebrate!
Tomorrow, we will have just 9 hours, 4 minutes and 34 seconds of daylight. By Monday, we'll have added 8 seconds to that total and we'll be on our way to longer days of light.
Whatever winter holiday you choose to make your central celebration in December, it was probably based on the fact that the sun seems to stand still and the shortest day of the year occurs on the Winter Solstice.
Wikipedia has a page full of the celebrations from the Beiwe Festival of the Sami people of Fennoscandia to Ziemassvētki celebrated in Latvia, Baltic states, and Romuva. The list includes more familiar occasions like Christmas, Hanukkah, Saint Lucy's Day, and the Yule festival.
This is an astronomical event, so the folks over at Earth Sky have the details in their post, Everything you need to know: December solstice 2013. As they point out, it is the shortest day in Boston but the longest day in the Southern Hemisphere.
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Words: Penny & Ed Cherubino
Photography: © 2013 Penny & Ed Cherubino
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