Dongzhi, the winter solstice

The winter solstice 冬至 (dōngzhì) is one of the twenty-four solar terms, and one of the oldest festivals still kept. Families eat together: tangyuan in the south, dumplings in the north. The day marks the return of yang, the moment the light starts to grow again even though the cold has not yet peaked.

It is not a public holiday in the modern civil calendar, and the site’s lunar table does not date it — a solar term is not a lunar day. The hub therefore shows it without a date, as it does for Losar and the ice festival, rather than writing a day that would have to be checked every year by hand. The other solar term on this hub is Qingming, in early April.