The biggest day during Antarctic winter, celebrated by all Antarctic stations, is the Midwinter Day.So first of all – Happy Midwinter Day to you from all of us here at Halley!

This is the day which marks the half-way point through the winter – it’s the darkest of all days, with the Sun the lowest ever below the horizon. It also means, that from this day on, every day will bring a tiny little bit more daylight back, and eventually the Sun will rise again in about six weeks time, bringing with it lots of daylight and all the possibilities and opportunities for the outdoor stuff! Obviously, as you can imagine, that day will be a big day too!

As the tradition dictates, we will have a week of celebrations, starting with a special dinner on the Midwinter Day, and followed by all sorts of games and other social events. Just before Midwinter all stations in Antarctica send their Midwinter Greetings to each other – and the picture above was our Greeting Card we used this year.

It is a tradition for all winterers to make hand-crafted gifts for each others and the way we did it is just after the ship had left and all people were back on station, we sat down after one dinner and each person drew a name of someone else they have to make the gift for. I’ll put up a few pictures of the gifts in another post later on, you’ll have to be a little more patient.

For now – Happy Midwinter from all at Halley Research Station, Antarctica, 76°S 26°W