My husband introduced me to Winter Solstice the year we got married I thought it was the oddest thing his family would go out in the front yard with bells and bang on pots and pants. This I was told was to wake the trees. The Trees started falling asleep on the autumnal equinox,. That's why their leaves turn and fall. On the Winter Solstice we ring bells to start them waking, so they'll be awake by spring to put out their new leaves.
To Winter
William Blake
O Winter! bar thine adamantine doors:
The north is thine; there hast thou built thy dark
Deep-founded habitation. Shake not thy roofs
Nor bend thy pillars with thine iron car.
He hears me not, but o’er the yawning deep
Rides heavy; his storms are unchain’d, sheathed
In ribbed steel; I dare not lift mine eyes;
For he hath rear’d his scepter o’er the world.
Lo! now the direful monster, whose skin clings
To his strong bones, strides o’er the groaning rocks:
He withers all in silence, and in his hand
Unclothes the earth, and freezes up frail life.
He takes his seat upon the cliffs, the mariner
Cries in vain. Poor little wretch! that deal’st
With storms; till heaven smiles, and the monster
Is driven yelling to his caves beneath Mount Hecla.