Winter Solstice 2009

Happy Solstice! This is my favorite Holiday I think. Several years ago, we claimed it as our own since we always have several Christmas celebrations to attend and we really wanted something that was ours. Celebrating the natural change of seasons resonates with both Tim and me so we chose the Solstice. We have a little ritual that we do each Solstice Eve where we eat dinner by candlelight, talk about what we're grateful for from the past year and make a wish or set an intention for the coming year. Then, we go outside and set off fireworks! We also do a bunch of crafts including decorating gingerbread (a traditional Solstice food), making a winter mobile with decorations that we make, stringing popcorn and cranberries and decorating a tree outside with that and oranges and birdseed to feed the animals, we go see Holiday lights, read Solstice stories and just tuck in as a family. I love it and I have fun each year coming up with something a little different than last year. Last night, we had apple relay races which were very fun! Today is our crafting day and we're going to decorate cookies, read our stories and do a bunch of crafts as well as go carolling. In the busy-ness of this season, it just feels good to have something that is all our own and is a quiet spot in the middle of the traveling and everything else. I also like the connection to nature and the deep connection to history. People have been honoring and celebrating the Sostice for thousands of years in different ways and in different cultures and beliefs so there's something very primal about honoring something with such a long and varied history. With the world being such a crazy place sometimes and humans making such an impact on everything, there's something very powerful in knowing that the natural order of things remains constant and predictable. It helps to put into perspective the little things that we worry over or give power to. At the end of the day, the Earth keeps spinning, the orbits of the planets keep going and the change of seasons can be marked every 3 months without fail. It's nice to have that to come back to.

Happy Solstice everyone!