---
title: Winter Solstice 2025
date: 2025-12-21T17:14:44.703Z
slug: 2025-12-21-winter-solstice-2025
author: Thomas Wilson

---
Last night was the longest night, and today was the shortest day (in this hemisphere at least).

The past few years I have come to appreciate and acknowledge the solstices more.  It's around this time that winter can start to feel just a bit... eternal?  We're far enough away from daylight outside of working hours to remember any kind of pleasant balance; and we're staring down the socially and culturally barren months of early spring.  It happens every year and, golly!, isn't it boringly uncontentious to say: but isn't it dark?

I take the solstice as the moment to acknowledge that it doesn't _actually_ get any darker from here (at least for another six months).  That might not feel true every day henceforth – a 15:59 sunset doesn't leave us with lavishly clement and accessible outdoor conditions – but it is getting better.

Today I managed to get out on my bicycle for more than a sixty-minute ride (the Oxfordshire winds make for tough autumn conditions).  Spending several hours surrounded by (largely dormant) nature is restorative.  This evening I will be drinking mulled wine curtesy of Anna Jones (see: [*A Modern Cook's Year*](https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/the-modern-cook-s-year-over-250-vibrant-vegetable-recipes-to-see-you-through-the-seasons-anna-jones/2612993)).  I will be roasting some parsnips, a cook-from-frozen Yorkshire pudding (I'm not spending the shortest day on from-scratch puds), and toasting in gratitude and excitement for everything that has happened, or will happen, between the two nearest summer solstices.

Whatever you celebrate at this time of year (Divine intervention; objective planetary movements), take some moments to celebrate it.