As the world grows dark and cold in the Northern Hemisphere, cultures across the globe gather to drive away the gloom. There are dozens of holidays celebrated around the world in the darkest months of the year, and almost all of them centre on light, warmth, and community. This week’s blog focuses on how candles and lights are used to celebrate some of the world’s major winter holidays.

The Winter Solstice

Perhaps the oldest surviving winter holiday is the Winter Solstice—the celebration of the shortest day of the year. Celebrations of the Solstice have always centred on light. As an article on True Highlands Blog explains,

The ancient people of northern Europe were hunter gatherers, many of whom worshipped the sun. In Norse mythology the sun is a wheel that changes the seasons and it was from the word for this wheel, houl, that the word yule comes from. At the mid-winter solstice they would light bonfires, tell stories and drink ale, in addition to making sacrifices to the gods to earn blessing on the forthcoming crops.

The Solstice is celebrated around the world in different ways, including pilgrimages to Stonehenge, where the sunset on the Winter Solstice passes precisely through a window between two of the ancient stones (although one of the stones, sadly, is no longer standing).

In Western cultures, the Solstice was celebrated with bonfires, as described above, and  by decorating a Yule Log and Yule Tree and then burning them to secure the favour of the gods for the coming year. In cultures honouring the Solstice, the darkest day of the year is celebrated through community, fire, and light, bringing hope, warmth, and a reminder that light will return again.

Christmas

Many of the Western Christmas traditions we know and love are, in fact, pagan in origin. Some families (like mine) incorporate a Yule Log as a table centrepiece and candleholder; the log is burned in the fireplace at the end of the festivities. And, of course, the Christmas tree originates from the Yule Tree, a practice celebrating evergreens as both symbolic of protection and of perseverance of life through harsh winters.

Christmas trees were originally decorated with candles—a tradition that originated in Germany and spread in the 17th century. And, while quite beautiful to behold, the practice was inherently risky—not hard to believe when you consider placing many open flames inside a very flammable tree.

Christmas Lights

Though many Christmas symbols and practices may be ancient in nature, that does not mean they have not been improved upon in more recent times. One such improvement is the replacement of open flame candles with twinkling electric Christmas lights draped over our Christmas trees.

In 1882, just two years after the patenting of the electric light bulb, Edward Johnson had an idea. Arguably the man who gave famed inventor Thomas Edison his start when he hired Edison as a consultant for the Automatic Telegraph Company, Johnson would later follow Edison when he started his own company and, upon the invention of the light bulb, was one of the first investors to put up cash to form the Edison Lamp Company.

With the idea of the Christmas tree as we know it today only being introduced a mere 40 years earlier in 1841, by the 1870s Christmas trees were pretty common, with fresh-cut-tree lots popping up in cities and shiny ornaments available at popular department stores like Macy’s in New York City. The candles used to light the trees, however…well, the candles were an issue. And Johnson had a solution.

He set up a tree in his parlour on a generator-powered revolving pedestal and set to work hand-wiring a string of 80 bulbs—red, white, and blue. He draped the string around the tree, turned it on, and…called a reporter. The reporter was amazed, and wrote in Detroit’s Post and Tribune that the tree presented “a most picturesque and uncanny aspect. … One can hardly imagine anything prettier.” The lights drew a crowd of passers-by admiring the tree, and by the next holiday season, Johnson was already working on “bigger and better.”

Of course, electricity was still not yet widely available, and even if you had access, the lights were exorbitantly expensive at first—a string of just 16 clunky bulbs sold for $12.00 in 1900, which would be about $350.00 now. But, just under 15 years later, holiday decorators could purchase a 16-foot string of lights for only $1.75, and by the 1930s, coloured lights were everywhere.

Today, both indoor and outdoor lights brighten the dark and cold of the winter months. With glittering electric lights decorating  windows and trees, Christmas joins the Winter Solstice as a time when lights and warmth facilitate community and gathering to cheer the gloom of the dark winter.

Chanukah

In 167 BCE, the Syrian Greek army, led by Antiochus, took control of Jerusalem. Although a rebellion led by the Maccabees drove the Greeks away, the army sacked the Second Temple. In the temple was a menorah that was supposed to always stay lit. In the trashed temple, however, there was only enough oil for the menorah to burn for one night, and it would take eight days to get more oil. The Maccabees lit the menorah anyways, and, according to the story, a miracle occurred and the menorah stayed lit for all eight days. Because of this, Jews around the world light candles for eight nights every year to celebrate Chanukah.

Those of us who were children in the 1990s may be familiar with the Rugrats Chanukah Special [watch it on YouTube!], which explains the Chanukah miracle in accessible, child-friendly language. In the episode, Grandpa Boris explains that the menorah is “like the nightlight of our people,” and I think that this simile does well to explain why cultures around the world light candles when the world is darkest.

Although silly and simplified, for me, the Rugrats Chanukah Special gets to the heart of what Chanukah means. Chanukah is a time to gather, to light candles, to remember hope in the darkness, to tell and share stories together. As with most Jewish holidays, Chanukah uses candles as a way to facilitate community, storytelling, and togetherness.

Kwanzaa

Unlike the other three holidays I’ve explored, Kwanzaa is a very recent holiday, originating in 1966 when Dr. Maulana Karenga, a professor and the chair of Black Studies at California State University, Long Beach, decided to create a celebration specifically for the African American community.

The holiday honours African American history and culture and uses candles in a similar manner to Jews at Chanukah: each night, another candle is lit on the Kinara (candleholder). Each candle (there are three red, three green, and one black) represents one principle of the Nguzo Saba, which is Swahili for “Seven Principles,” which are as follows: (1) Unity, or Umoja, (2) Self-determination, or Kujichagulia, (3) Collective Work and Responsibility, or Ujima, (4) Collective Economics, or Ujamaa, (5) Purpose, or Nia, (6) Creativity, or Kuuma, and (7) Faith, or Imani.

For families celebrating Kwanzaa, the lighting of the candles allows for gathering and remembrance, for a chance to look both back at the past and forward to a new year. The lights provide an opportunity for storytelling and reflection, for community and celebration, and for light and warmth when the world is at its darkest.

Lights All Around

Regardless of what we celebrate, we all yearn for a bit of light in the darkness, which holiday lights can share as they appear on the empty branches of trees, in windows, and on the eaves of many homes across our towns and cities. And, perhaps this was especially apparent during the recent COVID-19 pandemic.

During a time of struggle, when it was not possible to visit friends and family and gather together to celebrate around holiday lights, people still wanted to absorb the cheer and beauty that festive twinkling lights offer. So, all across North America, city governments, nonprofit organizations, companies, and neighbourhoods set up jaw-dropping light drive-throughs, so that people could enjoy the lights of the holiday season in a safe way (even if it wasn’t necessarily the way we longed for).

In Canada and other northern countries, where daylight dwindles in the winter, all these holiday lights—candles, Yule logs, and electric bulbs—help to brighten our outlooks, spread holiday cheer, and even help remind us of what’s really important at this time of year. Regardless of our faith and heritage, we can all be happy for that!

 
*This blog was first published in December 2019. It appears here with some updates. 
 
Molly Rookwood is a freelance editor and grammar-enthusiast based in Halifax, Nova Scotia. She can be found at https://www.rookwoodediting.com/about-me.