I have to keep telling myself that the darkness is but a temporary state of affairs. Tomorrow is the shortest day of the year -- the winter solstice and, yes, the real reason for the season.
People have probably been celebrating the start of lengthening days for much longer than they're been recording such celebrations, but the Romans were the first to do it in style. Saturnalia was the celebration of the god of agriculture, and, in typical Roman fashion, involved excesses of every kind. I'm sure the Druids had something special reserved for the solstice too. They were nuts for that sort of thing (see: Stonehenge). The viking types in Scandinavia celebrated "Yule" and burned a log to symbolize the growing strength of the sun. Or maybe to help it come back faster. Cause/effect was a little sketchy before the advent of the scientific method.
Poor Saint Nicolaus. He was well known for his generous gifts to the poor. I wonder how many RPMs he's turning right now.
Last year I cranked out this graph of daylight lengths in 3 different locations. For approximation's sake we can say that the graph for Minneapolis has an amplitude slightly larger than Mankato's. We're currently at the right edge of the graph -- it's all uphill from here. Well, until June 21.
Posted by eric at December 20, 2004 12:41 PM