Definitely check out Wendy Pfeffer’s The Shortest Day: Celebrating the Winter Solstice. She manages to meld science, nature, myth, history and various ways that different human cultures represent and celebrate the winter solstice around the world and throughout different historical periods into an entertaining and informative narrative. She concludes the book with several different science and cultural activities that are fun to do with children. If there is the slight whiff of a suggestion that the modern day American, white, middle class family that celebrates Christmas is the ultimate culmination of historical development, well we will have to tackle that issue in other ways on other days. Enjoy.