Tomorrow morning, Saturday, Dec. 21, at 4:19 a.m., will mark the Winter Solstice, which occurs annually either on the 21st or 22nd of December.

It is "the shortest day of the year," and this year there will be daylight for a little under eight hours, the least daylight of any date on the calendar. The sun is angled the farthest away from Earth than on any other day, so the sun is the lowest on our horizons.

The Romans named the day, solstitium, literally "sun standing still" because, as the folks at Britain's Royal Observatory at Greenwich say, "the apparent movement of the Sun's path north or south stops before changing direction."

Under the old Roman calendar, known as the Julian Calendar, the Winter Solstice occurred on Dec. 25. But when it was re-ordered into the Gregorian calendar, the Solstice fell back a few days. The early Christians, however, kept Christmas on the older date.

The Roman feast of Saturnalia occurred around the time of the Solstice, and was celebrated with feasting and intense partying, which included role reversal games and gift-giving.

The Winter Solstice has been acknowledged for centuries by cultures around the world. Long before the birth of Christ, Scandinavians were noting the Solstice at a holiday called the Feast of Juul, according to the Royal Observatory.

"Fires would be lit to symbolize the heat and light of the returning Sun and a Yule log was gathered and burnt in the hearth as a tribute to the Norse god Thor," the Observatory scholars write. "Present-day Christmas customs and traditions such as the Yule log, Yule boar, Yule singing, and others stem from pagan Juul. Today the event is celebrated in some forms of Modern Paganism."

In parts of Asia, people celebrate the Dongzhi Festival, welcoming longer days returning after long nights. The website Chinese American Family notes that the origins of the celebration go back to the yin and yang theory of the good life, focusing on balance and harmony.

One of the traditional foods at Chinese Solstice celebrations is tang yuan, according to Chinese American Family: "In southern China, people eat these round glutinous rice balls filled with sweet sesame or red bean paste which symbolize family togetherness and reunion. Serve each family member one large tang yuan and several small ones together in a ginger broth."

Stonehenge, the Neolithic monument of standing stones on Salisbury Plain in England, was built to mark the Solstices. Other cultural sites, including Ireland's Newgrange, Mexico's Chichen Itza and Peru's Machu Picchu, to name just a few, were all Solstice markers that tracked the sun's movements in December.

In our world at this time of year, people celebrate significant religious holidays. It is also a time to bring lights to dark nights, to gather for good food and fellowship, to count blessings, and mark a year passing and a new one about to be born.