Wednesday, December 2, 2009

'tis a season

Right? It's a season for something. I'm just not sure how we'll be celebrating this year. I hope I'll remember to be jolly no matter what, though.

I'm beginning to teach Pic about Solstice. Every year, I tell her we are celebrating it, but we don't really have any traditions surrounding it. At least, we don't have any traditions solely for Solstice. We do buy a tree and decorate it with lights and ornaments, but that's so linked to Christmas (although not at all to the celebration of Christ's birthday, as far as I can tell). I'm working the lighted tree into our Solstice celebration. I need to do more research on Yule, no?

I have a couple of books on Solstice checked out and a few more coming, but I haven't found the story I want to share with Pic yet. (Really, I haven't found the story that I want to cherish yet.) Perhaps I'll just start by telling her what different people have celebrated at different times. For now, we are focusing on light. I've told her that Winter Solstice is the shortest day of the year (although, as one book so clinically pointed out, every day is twenty-four hours, Solstice is just the day with the least sunlight) and that we celebrate because the light will be slowly returning for longer and longer amounts of time until Summer Solstice. We are celebrating the light and its return. I know this sounds flimsy, but I'm not building on personal tradition, here, I'm needing to come up with this on my own.

Growing up, we celebrated Christmas. A kind of Christmas. Once, at a time I was attending a Catholic church with my sitter's mom, I went to Midnight Mass, but I'm not sure how much of that I understood. I knew, growing up, that Christmas was the mass of Christ, a celebration of his birth (although I was also aware of suggestions that Christ wasn't born in December and that at some point Christianity had done what religions do in that it had superimposed one of it's holidays on that of a religion it was squelching). I never understood how lots of the elements of Christmas as we celebrated it fit in with the birth of Christ. Why a tree? Why lights on houses? Why crazy gift-buying for everyone? Why Santa Claus?

Here's what I remember: My mom would start gift shopping in July (or some other really early date). She'd have a list of gifts, and as she'd wrap gifts, she put a code or symbol on the package to indicate who the gift was for and what it was. Christmas was a time of baking and lots of food. Christmas was a time of tension. I'll not go into that.

It seems, though, that in moving away from what I know, and don't know, about this holiday, I've moved away from any sort of celebration at all. We went a good couple of years without even putting up a tree. Cardo doesn't say much, but I think he'd like if we did more. I'm sure he remembers somewhat...boisterous Christmases, what with having such a large family headed by a strongly Catholic mamma. Since Pic has been a part of our lives, I've more and more wanted traditions such as holiday traditions to celebrate and enjoy. I'm just getting a really slow start.

So, how will you all be celebrating this Solstice/Yule/Christmas/Kwanzaa/Chanukah? I'm sure I'm missing some important holidays here. Are there any other holidays you will be celebrating this month?

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P.S. December 19th seems to be National Oatmeal Muffin Day. It's also my parents twenty-ninth anniversary, in case you were wondering.

5 comments:

Kat said...

Hmmm. Good stuff here. When I celebrate with my family it's the whole tree, presents, falalala stuff. My parents are religious, so for them it is about Christ's birth and all that.

As I have mentioned about 700 times I have shook things up in the last 4 years by having a Christmas Fiesta. Mexican food, pinata, margaritas and so on.

When celebrating on my own, I tend to have a white elephant gift exchange /holiday party. Make a big dinner for friends.

The solstice thing is one that I want to work on. I usually say Happy Winter Solstice to people, but not really DO anything. I am thinking that some sort of sunrise activity might be nice (except for the fact it is so damn cold). Making sun and moon ornaments and decorating a tree would be fun... yeah, I am working on this one! Good question!

Kat said...

Oh and oatmeal muffin day! What!! Now that is a day I could celebrate.

v said...

Oooh, ooh, I forgot about making ornaments. We haven't done this in a couple of years. We'll do it this year and I'm definitely stealing your sun/moon idea, and probably adding in some stars.

Ah, yes, the white elephant gift exchange. I think I just gave away the wizard puzzle I got at the exchange you and Miss S hosted (I believe it was at your place).

I also like your sunrise activity idea...except I seriously doubt I could be pulled out of bed so early. We'll see.

Anonymous said...

I celebrate Christmas with my family in the traditional way, if that even makes sense anymore. A big meal, sometimes extended family and friends around, lots of baking, a tree, lights, presents...

I love the holidays, but I understand that not all do. I have a fairly close-knit family, though, so I'm sure that has a lot to do with it.

Usually, we do some sort of activity together, being very Waltons-ish and all. Last year we all made homemade ornaments. I still have the one my aunt made. It's terribly ugly, but I kept it and it's on my tree, because it's a memory. :) The year before that, we decorated, if I'm remembering correctly, gingerbread houses. I've already told you how awful my artistic ability is, so you can imagine the gloppy mess mine turned out to be, but it was fun, which is all that matters really.

lotsofglue said...

My grandparents are/were a lutheran married to a catholic (who was a nun for 15 years!!) but went to a baptist church and dragged me along.

Fun fun fun.

I am now just a generalized pagen, I decorate the crap out of my tree with everything from witches to skeletons. And the normal christmas stuff. And random decorations I make. And leaves.


Then on new year night we drag it outside, put lots of incense on it, and set it on fire:) for about 20 seconds there is an incredible light and heat and I feel it burns away all the crap from last year. And it makes me giggle.

I will post pictures for you this year.

My stepson is catholic, while my husband is baptist and I am introduced as spiritual.

I made stamps/stencils last year of celtic knots, goddess, and pentacles. This year they will be stamped on wooden disks.

You and Pic could make stars with twigs and string that I found on Craftster.
http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=289062.0

My favorite holiday story is about a father that walked to the nearest town to get *whatever* from the market. It started to snow on the way home and he got lost, then it got dark. This was way before lighted roads or flashlights. His family got worried as it got later and later so the mom brought out her store of candle nubs and went outside with the children to clip the candles to the tree in the front of the house.
The father could see the faint glow throught the woods and used that as a becon to find his way home.
Thus the first christmas tree was born!!