The first day of winter very much depends on where you are. I hear that in Ireland it is considered to start around the first of November. The old norse celeb

The first day of winter very much depends on where you are. I hear that in Ireland it is considered to start around the first of November. The old norse celebrated 3 days of "Winter Nights to usher in its beginning, and the English celebrated Winterfylleth, to much the same end, typically in mid-late October. It's also worth noting that in the old Germanic calendars, there were considered to be 2, rather than 4 seasons. Summer and Winter. If you break up the solar year and have the time between the spring and fall equinox as "summer" and the time between fall and spring equinox as "winter", the winter solstice is smack dab in the middle. Worth pointing out though is that Germanic peoples mostly used a lunisolar, rather than purely solar or purely lunar calendar, which is why we rarely see these historical holidays falling directly on such astronomical events.