When is the New Year really coming

In the LiveJournal of the family magazine "Ray" for children and their parents they write: "When is the New Year coming? On the night of the first of January. Right? Wrong. It's only on TV. But in fact, when? Let's figure it out. The custom of decorating the Christmas tree originated in the XVI century in Protestant Germany. And it was not done at Christmas, as most of us think."

Two to two and a half weeks before Christmas, on the penultimate Sunday before it, Christians honor the memory of Adam and Eve. Among the Orthodox, this holiday is called "The Memory of the Holy Forefathers." It was on this holiday that the Christmas tree was dressed up. Why?

The tree symbolized the tree of Paradise. The very one from which the disobedient and impatient Eve plucked the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil.

The father of Protestantism, Martin Luther, was an edifying man, so he decided: let the Christmas gifts hang in front of the children for a longer time, cultivate patience in them. Do you remember how Vitya Maleev brought up his will in a book? I didn't eat the cake.

The adoration of the Magi. Little "Adam and Eve" from the story of M. Zoshchenko "Christmas Tree". Previously, Christmas gifts were not given to everyone: you see, here is a boy in a black hat crying.

By the way, initially gifts for Christmas were given only to children. And even then, not to everyone, but only to those who behaved well, like little Jesus. After all, it was the baby Jesus who was the first child to receive Christmas gifts — gifts of the Magi: gold, frankincense and myrrh.

Ordinary children from poor families received apples and nuts. Both are round — that's where the Christmas balls come from. Well, why exactly the Christmas tree is also clear: what other green trees can be in Germany in December.

The real Santa Claus was swarthy and looked something like this.

So, the gifts were given for Christmas, and the Christmas tree was put up for two or two and a half weeks: for the commemoration of Adam and Eve. And the New Year?

Wait a minute — we almost forgot another mandatory Christmas attribute — Santa Claus and Santa Claus.

Almost simultaneously with the commemoration of Adam and Eve, on December 19, St. Nicholas is commemorated. Saint Nicholas was a bishop in Lycia, on the territory of modern Turkey. Among other things, such a story is told about him. One poor man had three daughters. It's time to marry them off, but no one took them without a dowry. Bishop Nicholas found out about this trouble and threw a bag of gold into the poor man's yard for three nights in a row.

Saint Nicholas: in American, German and Russian.

This story connected with the atmosphere of expectation of the holiday, with the Christmas tree, with gifts. And St. Nicholas began to turn into Santa Claus.

The Americans gave him a modern image of a good-natured old man dressed up as a gnome. The character was invented in 1822 by the poet Clement Moore, and the appearance — a short jacket, a dwarf cap and a belly — in 1862 by the artist Thomas Nast. In Europe, even in the twentieth century, St. Nicholas was depicted on Christmas cards in episcopal vestments.

In Russia, St. Nicholas also gave gifts to children, only they dressed him warmer here. You are not in the episcopal mitre in the Russian winter. When the celebration of the New Year was introduced in Soviet Russia in 1935, this image was recalled, but was rethought. Instead of St. Nicholas, they borrowed an image from Alexander Ostrovsky's fairy tale "The Snow Maiden". So Santa Claus appeared.

Well, now — for the New Year. It may seem that the date of the new year is a purely conditional thing. You can set it for the first of January, or you can set it for the first of September, as it was in Russia before 1700, or for the first of March, as in Ancient Rome. But this is not the case.

If a year is an astronomical concept (the duration of the Earth's complete revolution around the Sun), then the change of one year to another is also astronomically conditioned.

Everything is simple here. Exactly five days, from December 19 (St. Nicholas Memorial Day, remember?) On December 23, the winter solstice takes place. The sun seems to freeze above the horizon at the lowest point. At the bottom of what? Analemmas.

John Wallis and his infinity symbol.

If we take a camera and take pictures of the sun above the horizon every day at noon, and a year later we put all our photos into one picture, we will see that the sun seems to draw an unusual figure in the sky, similar to the elongated figure 8. This figure is called "analemma", which in Greek means "basis".

By the way, it was the analemma that the English mathematician John Wallis proposed to use to denote infinity — however, putting it on its side so as not to confuse it with the number eight. In the sky, the eight "stands". And at its lowest point, the sun freezes from December 19 to December 23.

On December 24 (Catholic Christmas Eve), the winter solstice ends, the sun begins to move up the analemma. His path across the sky increases from this, we say: "The day is added." A new astronomical year begins. Another curious story is connected with the analemma — the symbol of infinity.

Shi-an-Lie from the outside and from the inside.

In Ireland, in County Meath, there is an unusual mound, which is called Shi-an-Vru in Irish, and Newgrange in English. It is very low, only 12 meters, but very ancient — 500 years older than the Egyptian pyramids. (The oldest pyramid was built in 2670 BC, and this mound is about 3200 BC.)

According to Irish myths, this mound was the dwelling of the god of the earth Dagda. Dagda had seven children, and he gave six of them each his own mound — but the youngest, Angus, the god of youth and love, did not get the mound. Then he asked his father to give him the Shi-an-Vru mound "just for one day and one night," and Dagda agreed. But the cunning Angus chose for himself the day and night of the Samhain holiday, when, according to the beliefs of the Irish, time stops, after which he said that now he became the owner of the mound forever. Dagda had no choice but to give the mound to Angus.

That's how it happens.

But let's return from the legends to the real mound. A long narrow passage lined with stone leads inside, at the end of which there is a burial chamber. The whole year is dark in it, but at the end of December every year something amazing and beautiful happens.

The opening into which the rays fall, and the sunlit corridor leading to the chamber.

Exactly at noon, the rays of the sun pass through a small window above the entrance to the tunnel and illuminate the chamber inside the mound. This phenomenon can be observed for only 15 minutes, and only five days — on the sixth day at noon, the sun's rays no longer reach the central chamber. The spectacle when the sun's rays pierce the dusty air of the corridor and the ancient tomb seems to light up from the inside is simply enchanting.

It is not by chance that you can get into this cell only by winning a special lottery — every year only twenty out of thousands of applicants are chosen. Because the camera is very small, and the phenomenon, despite all its beauty, ends very quickly. This is how the Irish were able to determine the beginning of the new year by the sun 5,000 years ago.

And now you and I can. And we can safely go with this ability to celebrate the New Year the old-fashioned way, "on TV".

Happy New year!