This morning I wished everyone at the café a happy Winter Solstice. No-one I found there knew it was today. And no-one knew it was the true Christmas or the true New Year. Thousands upon thousands of years ago, the shortest day of the year was difficult to pinpoint with certainty, as witnessed by the holidays that miss it by so many days. But now that we are so well informed, now that we know with certainty that the Winter Solstice always falls on December 21 or 22, why do we still insist on the old silly holidays?

Addendum (August 8, 2018)

The same holds for the Summer Solstice, which falls between June 20 and 22. As well as the Spring and Autumn Equinoxes, which fall between March 19 and 21, and September 21 and 24, respectively. All together, the solstices and equinoxes mark the only holidays worthy of note on planet earth. They are natural holidays, as it were. Not for nothing are they marking the four seasons. The only fly in the ointment is climate change, though. Slowly but surely, seasons are becoming rather difficult to tell apart. As of late, only two seasons seem to have established themselves—warm and cold one, of which the first is dry and the second wet. Come to think of it, the return of proper seasons will surely be celebrated one fine day several centuries from now. This is when natural holidays will get another chance to be recognized by all and sundry. Fingers crossed.