The Winter Holidays have been celebrated for thousands of years, changing form as human culture shifts through time. The Winter Solstice has been the focus of midwinter celebrations in the Northern hemisphere for thousands of years. Neolithic monuments like Stonehenge and Bru na Boinne are aligned to capture the first rays of the rising sun on the Solstice, bringing the hope of the returning sun in the days and months ahead.

The Winter Solstice celebrates the release from the coldest darkest days and nights of the year and it is easy to see why ancient people, so completely bound to their environment, celebrated the return of the Sun.

Many of our Christmas rituals and traditions have absorbed our forebears’ Solstice festivities; the use of Holly, Ivy and Mistletoe in our holiday decorations hark back to ancient times and if we delve deep enough we find cannabis has also held a place in our winter holidays for centuries.

Christmas Carolling, the tradition where folks go house to house singing Christmas Carols on the nights before Christmas is purported to have roots in the old Northern European festival of Koleda. Koleda celebrated the return of the Winter Sun God; young men would dress up as magical creatures, halfman, half animal, they proceeded from house to house singing, they were led by an Elder and they carried a ‘Bride’ on a woven hemp seat as she sat spinning hemp on a spindle. The ritual singing brought blessings to each home and chased out any evil spirits lurking within. The householders would pay for this cleansing with hemp fiber which the Bride would spin into thread which would become clothing for the newborn in the community. Ethnologists believe this ritual formed the basis of our Christian caroling tradition, though the part played by cannabis fell by the wayside.

In other places cannabis has maintained its significance. In modern day Poland a hemp seed soup, Semieniatka, is served on Christmas Eve and offered to the family ancestors who are invited into the home that night.

In Germany, where our St Nicholas or Santa Claus traditions started, cannabis was one of the sacred herbs that this mythical figure smoked in his pipe. This special smoking blend, included special herbs; mugwort, juniper and hemp seeds which crackled and popped. This special smoke is known as Knastert. Another ancient hemp recipe from Germany is Christmas Beer, which infused extra herbal ingredients, including cannabis, into the holiday brew.

It makes sense that cannabis formed part of the winter holidays as the ancients knew that this special plant had many gifts to offer. Not only fiber for weaving and seeds for nutrition but also medicinal properties that enhanced health and relaxation during the dark days of midwinter.

Centuries later, we welcome back cannabis to embellish our own holidays, a reminder that nothing is really new under the life-giving sun!

From all of us at Synergy Wellness we wish you a very merry Solstice and Christmas and a Happy New Year!