Winter Solstice

22 December 2006

December is my favourite month of the year... because it is the beginning of winter, my birthday on 11 December, and the season for Winter Solstice on 21/22 December and Christmas (X'mas) on 25 December...

There are 2 festivals in December that are associated with the white season of winter: the Winter Solstice and X'mas, and I love both...

Winter Solstice
Winter Solstice (冬至) marks the peak of the winter season and it is the day with the shortest daytime and longest night in the northern hemisphere. Winter Solstice is celebrated as a festival of reunion, with family eating tang yuan (汤圆 / glutinous rice ball). Unlike other traditional chinese festivals, Winter Solstice is not marked using the Chinese Lunar Calendar. Similar to Qingming (清明), Spring Equinox (春分), Summer Solstice (夏至) and Autumn Equinox (秋分), Winter Solstice is marked using the Western Gregorian Calendar, explaining the Winter Solstice being fixed on 22 December (or 21 December during a leap year). Winter Solstice is also 1 of the 24 solar term (节气).

Tang Yuan
My favourite and sweetest memories of Winter Solstice is, we get to make tang yuan on the night before... This is the ultimate favourite festive activities for my brother and I when we are young. Substituting plasticine with flour, we will make creative and funny tang yuan of assorted shapes and sizes (e.g. rabbit, bear, Ninja Turtle). Mumy will always say that we are giving her more trouble than help, as she needs to redo all the weird tang yuan we made... There was once when we tried to cook our creative animal tang yuan, but it turns out to be quite different from how it was supposed to be.

Our tang yuan is prepared and cooked according to our traditional kampong recipes of my extended family and it is very different from those sold commercially. The tang yuan we make are kosong (without fillings) and the soup is cooked using gula melaka and pandan...

Winter Solstice 2006
Winter Solstice 2006 falls on 22.12.06.

I used to love to eat tang yuan as it is a sweet dessert, but as I grow up, I find tang yuan too sweet, so don't like it as much... But after years of substandard quality floor, my family thinks the tang yuan this year was one of the best in recent years... In fact, there isn't enough for a 3rd bowl...


Mumy's homemade tang yuan 2006

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