Celebrate Winter Solstice

The Guide

Plan a ritual or two, and gather materials. Some of our favorite include:

• Talk about Winter Solstice: If this is your first year marking Solstice, with great enthusiasm, let kids know that tonight is Solstice Eve! Once you make it a practice, count down the days to Solstice and engage kids in planning your rituals. Learn more about Winter Solstice celebrations around the world.
• Welcome Solstice on a walk: Going on a walk just before and through dusk. Given that this is the day with shortest daylight, darkness falls early, so this "early walk in the dark" can be a unique experience alone.
• Solstice plants: At the start of our walk, we look for fallen twigs, solstice plants like evergreens and holly (both Ancient Romans and Ancient Celts would deck their halls with boughs of holly, which was thought of to be magic for its ability to stay green through winter) as well as marvelous winter weed flowers. If your climate doesn’t have these plants, gather bits from your favorite local plants.
• Make a winter spiral: If we are in our own yard, we borrow a handful of boughs of evergreen to lay a winter spiral on the ground with a candle in the middle to symbolize the sun and how we are at the darkest part of the year’s cycle, about to start moving back towards the sunniest part of that cycle. (If we're off to a public park, we come bearing our own boughs of green so as to respect the environment.)
• Go around and around! Here is a perfect time to act out the year’s cycle while exploring the concept of rotation, a phenomenon that kids' bodies just love and are driven to do as they develop both kinesthetically and cognitively. Walk around the spiral and back out again, spinning around or even rolling down a hill.
• Light and hopes: Bring a fall lantern or, if it's cold enough, botanical ice lanterns. You can also bring plain, small candles and place them in the sand or dirt. As dusk is really falling, make a circle of candles, one for each of your family. Light them one at a time, giving each the chance to share hopes. These can be hopes for the world, hopes for family and friends, or promises to do good things for your community or neighbors—whatever inspires, grounds and makes kids feel connected.
• Decorate your home a bit: As you walk, collect tree fruits to turn into simple nature ornaments when you go back indoors for the night. Or, collect freshly fallen boughs from a willow tree and bend them into 5-pointed stars, another marvelous pagan symbol of Solstice.
• Feast! No Solstice tradition is complete without a feast of some kind. Whether it is a favorite family dish, cookies shaped like the sun, or sunny-side-up eggs for dinner, enjoy some special feast. Our menu has varied a bit, but always includes cookies by candlelight.