Easing into the New Year with Weather Magic

I'm one of those people who really love holidays, particularly holidays where we get to do something special. Foods only eaten on special days? Decorations? Costumes? Count me in. This might be one of the reasons October, November and December are my favorite months of the year.

Often in the past I have been a little depressed when New Year's ends. It's the last of the major holidays, and once it's done it's time to take down the tree and the lights and stop eating so much gingerbread. It's also time to stop engaging in all the holiday socializing we usually do and get back to work. But this year I'm not feeling quite as depressed about the end of the holidays. Partly that's because we just didn't do any holiday socializing, except on Zoom. There's nothing to miss! I also don't miss some of our other usual holiday activities, like going to the movies or trying new restaurants, because we didn't do any of that either.

However, my New Year's attitude might also be better because I'm engaging in a little piece of folk magic: paying attention to the weather. There's an old piece of New England folklore that says the weather on the twelve days of Christmas predicts the weather for the next twelve months of the year. So I've been writing down a weather report every day since Christmas.

To be honest, I'm not entirely sure how this is supposed to work. The tradition that Christmas has twelve days dates back to 567 AD, when a council of bishops declared it a special festive season. I think there's still some confusion, though, whether the twelve days include Christmas and end on January 5, or if they start the day after Christmas and end on January 6, the Feast of Epiphany. Different churches and different regions have different rules. 

Personally, I started keeping track of the weather on Christmas Day. The weather was warm, wet and windy. Gusty winds knocked down power lines, but the temperatures were above average and most of the snow melted. So does this mean that January will be warmer than normal with heavy winds? According to the folklore it does. 

I'm not entirely convinced this is an accurate way to forecast the weather, but writing down my observations about the weather at least helps me feel more grounded. I've also been taking notes about birds and animals. They aren't technically weather, but I'm hoping they can offer some insight into what's going to happen in the coming year. For instance, I saw a black squirrel outside my house on December 25, 26 and 28. I dubbed him the Black Squirrel of Winter. Who knows what he foretells for January, February and April? Hopefully good things...

I hope 2021 has good things in store for all of us. Happy New Year!

Blue moon on New Year's Eve

I was going to break the news that we'll have a blue moon on New Year's Eve, but Associated Press beat me to the punch. It's good when folklore is covered in the press, but not when the press steals my topic! In case you didn't know, a blue moon is the term for the second full moon in a month. December's first full moon was on December 2, and the second is tomorrow night.

What the AP won't tell you is that the first moon was the Full Cold Moon. The meaning is pretty obvious there! December is cold.

The second moon will be the Full Long Nights Moon. Again, I can see where that name came from. Although the winter solstice was on the 21st, our nights are still very, very long. The shortest days in December had nine hours and four minutes of sunlight. (The 19th, 21st and 23rd were all the same length.) On New Year's Eve, we'll have a whopping nine hours and eight minutes of sunlight. Spend those four extra minutes well! In comparison, our longest day was June 23 with fifteen hours and eighteen minutes of sunlight.

Happy New Year!