9 Winter Solstice Rituals for an Intentional Celebration

The winter solstice—when the sun reaches its farthest southern position, and daylight is reduced to its shortest span—is one of the most profound turning points of the year. In 2025, it falls on December 21 in the Northern Hemisphere, marking the longest night of the year and the quiet beginning of the sun’s return. While the world hurtles towards holiday chaos, reclaim your winter solstice with stillness and reflection just as the world’s ancient cultures did thousands of years ago, from Roman Saturnalia feasts to Persian Shab-e Yalda gatherings to the blazing Yule logs of Scandinavia. These cultures understood that the darkest night isn’t only about endings, but also about beginnings. This year, you can be inspired by ancient winter solstice traditions and reinvent them for today, whether you build a candle altar in your apartment, a deconstructed dessert by the fire, or take a night walk under a winter sky.

Here are nine ways to honor the solstice with intention, ritual, and just enough magic to live in the spirit of possibility as we head into the new year.

Craft a Candle Altar to Guide the Sun’s Return

It’s practically a rite of passage to create a winter solstice altar, but good news: you don t need a fancy mantel or a meditation room to make it work. Even in the smallest of city apartments, it’s possible. Start by clearing a surface like a windowsill, a credenza, or even your kitchen counter. Then, gather a few candles in varying heights and textures: think sculptural tapers from Greentree Home, a dark and moody pillar from Cire Trudon, or something hand-dipped from a local maker. If you want symbolism, go for white, gold, and black to honor the interplay of darkness and light. As the sun sets on the longest night, light them one by one and decorate the space with flowers, crystals, and even tarot cards. You can even invoke each candle with a wish or intention. Let the glow soften the room and the small movements of the flames pull you into the present. If you want to take it further, try Trataka—an ancient yogic practice of candle-gazing meditation designed to quiet the mind and awaken intuition. It s a fitting practice for the solstice, when cultures from Italy to Scandinavia have long used fire and candlelight to honor the sun s return. Soften your gaze, watch the flicker, breathe. Consider it a threshold ritual of gratitude to the darkness and a welcome to the slow return of the light.

Create a Digital Vision Board To Honor the Return of the Light

While the winter solstice invites reflection, it s also a time of possibility. Consider this your permission slip to finally put those screenshotted mantras, saved travel snaps, and Pinterest rabbit holes to good use. This is about conjuring the you that’s waiting to rise to the surface. Sure, the traditional vision board calls for scissors and glue, but your inspiration already lives in screenshots and saved posts—so let’s work with that. And forget resolutions that assume life moves in a straight line. It doesn’t. Lead with feeling instead. How do you want to feel as the light returns? Expansive? Electric? Soft? Brave? Let those vibes guide your curation. Arrange your favorites into a digital collage using Canva, then print it as a poster through Artifact Uprising for that tangible, intentional feel. Think of it as a mood map for the months ahead. Once it arrives, hang it somewhere unavoidable. Let it catch your eye over morning coffee or at your work desk, sinking into your psyche and gently reminding you where you re headed.

Make Your Own Celebratory Nightcap Ritual

Throughout history, many cultures have viewed the winter solstice as a time when the veil between worlds grows thin—a liminal window where intuition sharpens and whispers from the universe arrive more easily. A nightcap ritual can be a beautiful way to honor that magic and invite it in, but skip the alcohol (you want your channels clear) and reach for something like Little Saints St. Oak to craft a warming hot toddy with citrus slices, cinnamon sticks, or a sprig of rosemary. Sip your drink with intention and let the quiet of the longest night settle around you. Make it outrageous by wearing your finest silk pajamas while playing your favorite winter jazz playlist, and journal any intuitive hits that float to the surface. The solstice naturally pulls us toward rest and receptivity; this ritual simply creates a pocket of stillness where the subtle can speak. Lean into it. You might be surprised what finds you.

Hang Mistletoe Above Your Bed to Boost Manifesting

Mistletoe has been steeped in magic for centuries. The Druids, the priestly class of ancient Celtic cultures, considered it sacred, a symbol of fertility, protection, and the ability to ward off evil spirits. Hanging it in doorways for a kiss is the tradition we all know, but try this instead: Suspend a sprig above your bed for a more private, intentional manifesting ritual. Source a beautiful dried bundle from a brand like Bloomist or East Olivia or your local flower shop and hang it with a bit of velvet ribbon for a dose of fanciful, main-character energy. Each night as you slip into bed, take a moment to appreciate the mistletoe and you by naming one thing you’re grateful for and one desire you’d like to experience. It can be something tangible like a new creative opportunity, or something a bit more metaphorical like being more present or adventurous in the year ahead. Let the mistletoe serve as a seasonal checkpoint and a reminder that what you nurture in winter tends to take root by spring.

Write Your Own Solstice Reflection Prompts

Forget the generic New Year’s journal prompts you’ve seen a thousand times and ditch the recommendations from your favorite Instagram wellness influencer. Make this Winter Solstice about owning your unique voice by creating your own journal prompts tailored to where you actually are in life. You could start with questions that feel gentle: What did I learn this year? What did I release? What surprised me? Then try a few that pull you forward: What do I want to feel in the year ahead? What qualities am I ready to grow into? Writing by hand matters here: it’s one of your oldest neural pathways, and it slows you down and lets patterns surface that typing tends to bypass. Grab a notebook you actually love (Papier and Appointed both make beautiful ones worth the investment), your favorite pen, and settle somewhere cozy with a warm drink. Let the answers come naturally, and think of it less as journaling and more as a private conversation with the version of yourself waiting on the other side of winter.

Host a Cozy Winter Gathering with Seasonal Foods

Skip the fussy dinner party energy and lean into something way more approachable. No one needs heels on the longest night of the year. Instead, invite your inner circle over for a pajama dinner party and build your menu around what winter does best: roasted squash, earthy mushrooms, root vegetables with good olive oil (Brightland’s Rosette pairs beautifully with anything caramelized). Make your table eclectic with mismatched candles, linen napkins, and a scattering of pomegranates or sprigs of eucalyptus down the center. If you do it this way, you’ll be evoking traditions of the past: The ancient Romans celebrated Saturnalia with week-long feasts, suspending the usual social order so everyone could gather as equals, while in Persia families stayed awake together until sunrise for Shab-e Yalda, enjoying pomegranates and reading poetry in a family circle during the longest night of the year. And there’s a reason these traditions stuck: winter food slows people down in the best way. This is good news for a dinner party. It means people can ditch their phones, dive into deep conversations, and leave feeling genuinely nourished.

Make a Hot Apple Cider to Honor Mindful Seasonal Living

Is there anything more cozy than hot apple cider? This is low-effort, high-reward winter magic in a cup. The easiest way to enjoy this time-honored winter drink is in a slow cooker. Dust off your old crock pot and grab whole cloves, cinnamon sticks, and orange peel from your favorite market. If you want to make it feel intentional, source a quality cider from your local orchard or farmers’ market. But if that’s out of reach, Trader Joe’s Spiced Cider will do the trick. Combine the mixture with your other ingredients. Once your mixture is ready, pour it into your favorite mug and sip it while journaling, reading, or doing absolutely nothing. The solstice invites stillness, and there s something quietly radical about honoring that.

Bake a Bûche de Noël (or Go For a Chic Deconstructed Version)

Long before it was a dessert, the Yule log was an actual log: a Scandinavian tradition in which a massive piece of oak or beech was blessed and burned through the twelve days of Christmas to honor the return of the sun. As hearths shrank and city living took over, 19th-century Parisian pastry chefs did what the French do best: they made it edible. The bûche de Noël was born. Making one yourself is simpler than it looks: a rolled sponge cake, a slather of chocolate buttercream, a few fork drags to mimic bark, and you have a handmade solstice centerpiece. If baking isn t your thing, no shame: order one from a local patisserie or Williams Sonoma or skip the cake entirely and create a deconstructed Yule-log-inspired spread with chocolate bark, meringue mushrooms, chestnut cream, candied orange peel, and dark chocolate shavings. However you do it, enjoy your dessert by candlelight or alongside your hot apple cider. It s a sweet way to welcome the light back.

Stargaze on a Night Walk During the Longest Night of the Year

The winter solstice has captivated humans for thousands of years—ancient monuments like Stonehenge in England and Newgrange in Ireland were built to align with the solstice sun, proof of how deeply some ancient cultures revered this turning point. This year, honor that legacy by stepping outside and looking up. The winter sky is one of the clearest of the year, and the longest night gives you more time to take it in. Bundle up and walk slowly through your neighborhood or a nearby park. If you want guidance, an app like Stellarium can help you identify what s overhead. You might spot Orion, the Pleiades, or, if you re lucky, a planet or two. A night walk requires no preparation, only presence, which can feel rare in the chaos of the holidays.