Day 1

 Winter is upon us, and so is the Holiday season. I decided that this year I want to do something for my winter holiday, Winter Fest. So from now until the 17TH, or the 3RD Saturday in December, I will be doing a Winter Fest Advent Calendar to show traditions and some other things that are related to Winter Fest!

What is Winter Fest

From what is in Incantus Academy about Winter Fest, all that is really said is how it is basically a festival that celebrates the Winter Elemental Spirits, Aura in particular. So today, I will be explaining what Winter Fest is exactly. So to start with, Winter Fest takes place during the 3RD week in December, ending with an event called the Snowflake Dance that takes place in a different location each time. At Incantus Academy, they have the Winter Solstice Ball instead, though it is not actually on the Winter Solstice.

The Snowflake Dance’s, along with Winter Fest’s, origins can be traced back to ancient Zenith around the 11th Century M.E. or 1000 M.E. as a way to honor winter. This spread to other realms around 1358 M.E., as people traveled between realms. The dance originated from a ceremony that two people, that are under 18, dance with winter spirits. This tradition has survived many years and is continued in today’s Winter Fests. The tradition of holding a festival, however, came later than the dance. Historically, Winter Fest came about when more people learned about the Snowflake Dance and saw it fit to honor the Spirits even more by holding a festival. The exact date of Aura’s birth, the person whom the ceremonial dance was made for, is not known, it is believed to have been around the 3RD week of December. Officially, Winter Fest starts on Monday, giving people time to prepare. 

There is a Winter Fest day that is like Christmas, meaning presents, known as Starry-Wish Day, which takes place on the 3RD day, Wednesday, of Winter Fest. Students of Incantus Academy tend to celebrate this on a different day with their families. Though some students chose to have a mini celebration with their friends on the actual day. Most towns and cities have their own Winter Fest celebration, with the exception of Zenith since they have a realm-wide celebration.

Each Winter Fest is unique to the Realm they take place in, Zenith being the most traditional. Starry-Wish Day is, however, an inter-realm holiday.

Starting with the most traditional realm when it comes to Winter Fest, Zenith has a festival similar to other traditional Zenith festivals. For the most part Elementalists show off their skills, especially ice elementalists. The people of Zenith don’t have a big festival since they keep to the traditional celebration of winter spirits. They only celebrate Starry-Wish Day and the original ceremonial dance.

Moving on to the first realm to have a special holiday for each festival day. As the first realm to have a special event for each day, Mythial has the traditional Winter Fest celebration as a whole, excluding Zenith. The first day in Mythial is Everton Day since the day that the Lunnel Dynasty fell was celebrated on the 3RD Monday of December since it is believed that the event happened around that time. This day is important to Mythalinans since it is the day that celebrates the end of the oppression that the Lunnel Dynasty had brought when they overthrew the Trinity Dynasty. The Lunnels fell to a group of rebels led by Philip Everton, who later became the king of Mythial. The second day is the Winter Festival, which is basically the same as what is shown in Incantus Academy. The third day is Starry-Wish Day of course. The fourth day is The Winter Feast, and as the name implies, it is a feast. The fifth day is the Day of Rest, most realms share the tradition of having a day where no one does any work. The final day is the Snowflake Dance.

Since I have mentioned the Snowflake Dance several times, but I haven’t gone into many details. Out of all the changes to the traditions of the people of Zenith’s ceremonial honoring of the winter spirits, the Snowflake Dance has changed the least. The only change the dance has seen is the fact that it does not only take place in Zenith anymore. In the past and today, the dance begins when a winter spirit chooses a pair of people who are at least four and at most twenty. They can be male or female, and it doesn’t matter if they know how to dance. The dance changes depending on the spirit, but most choose to do a type of waltz, but there are untraditional spirits that choose to do more modern dances. Every once in a while, a spirit may allow the pair to dance on their own, the Zenithans never had any control over the dance and neither do people today.

The next realm is Crystalia. Their first day is a feast, and so is the second, and fourth, and fifth. Yeah, Crystalia’s Winter Fest is more like a Winter Feast. The only days that aren’t feasts are Starry-Wish Day and the Snowflake Dance. There’s not much to say about their traditions, all there is to it, really, is food. Most Crystalians are rich, so they choose to indulge in course upon course of food. It’s almost like a week-long Thanksgiving celebration! This is the closest thing to Thanksgiving in this universe, so to all you American, and Canadian if your Thanksgiving is like this, Thanksgiving lovers, this is your Winter Fest. Yeah, I would not choose to celebrate Winter Fest in Crystalia, since I don’t think I could handle that much food.

Moving on to Lilith, or Lithial in accord with their name for their realm. Lithians have similar traditions to Mythial, having the same fourth and fifth days. Their first day is the Winter Harvest Festival. Unlike the real world, Lithial has crops that thrive in the snow. Everberries are abundant, and there are many crops that were bred to survive in snow. For the festival, Lithians gather up the year's crops in order to prepare for the feast on the fourth day. This festival lasts for two days. Those are the only two days that are unique to Lilith since the third and last days are a part of every Winter Fest.

Eliria is the last realm that I will be talking about. Their first day is the Snowfall Feast, which celebrates the rest that snow brings to the land. The second is the Winter Fair, which is what takes place all week at IA. The fourth day doesn’t have a name, but most people go caroling on this day. The fifth is The Silver-moon Gala, which is like the Winter Solstice Ball at IA.

From the traditional to the week-long Thanksgiving feast, Winter Fest has changed since the time of ancient Zenith. I hope that you have a Merry Christmas, and a great winter!