As early as 2, 500 years ago, about the Spring and Autumn Period( 770-476 BC, China  had determined the point of Winter Solstice by observing movements of the sun with  a sundial. It is the earliest of the 24 seasonal division points. The time will be each  December 22 or 23 according to the Gregorian calendar. 
The Northern hemisphere on this day experiences the shortest daytime and longest  nighttime. After the Winter Solstice, days will become longer and longer. As ancient  Chinese thought, the yang, or muscular, positive things will become stronger and  stronger after this day, so it should be celebrated. 
The Winter Solstice became a festival during the Han Dynasty( 206 BC-220 AD)and  thrived in the Tang and Song dynasties( 618-1279) . The Han people regarded Winter  Solstice as a " Winter Festival', so officials would organize celebrating activities. On  this day, both officials and common people would have a rest. The army was  stationed in, frontier fortresses closed and business and traveling stopped. Relatives  and friends presented to each other delicious food. In the Tang and Song dynasties, the Winter Solstice was a day to offer scarifies to Heaven and ancestors. Emperors  would go to suburbs to worship the Heaven:  while common people offered sacrifices  to their deceased parents or other relatives. The Qing Dynasty( 1644-1911) even had  the record that" Winter Solstice is as formal as the Spring Festival, showing the great  importance attached to this day  
In some parts of Northern China, people eat dumpling soup on this day while  residents of some other places eat dumplings, saying doing so will keep them from  frost in the upcoming winter. But in parts of South China, the whole family will get  together to have a meal made of red-bean and glutinous rice to drive away ghosts  and other evil things. In other places, people also eat tangyuan, a kind of stuffed  small dumpling ball made of glutinous rice flour. The Winter Solstice rice dumplings  could be used as sacrifices to ancestors, or gifts for friends and relatives. The Taiwan  people even keep the custom of offering nine-layer cakes to their ancestors. They  make cakes in the shape of chicken, duck, tortoise, pig, cow or sheep with glutinous  rice flour and steam them on different layers of a pot. These animals all signify  auspiciousness in Chinese tradition. People of the same surname or family clan gather  at their ancestral temples to worship their ancestors in age order. After the sacrificial  ceremony, there is always a grand banquet.

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