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Monday, December 21, 2009

Winter Solstice

Today is the winter solstice and my younger son's half birthday. He was born on the summer solstice, June 21.

As Unitarian Universalists, we hear about the winter solstice in the winter pageant the kids in our church put on every year. We talk about the physical and the historical aspects of it. There's one family though in our church who actually celebrates it, and it's such a neat story of creating your own traditions that I thought I would share it.

It started out when their kids were small. Christmas time would roll around, and they would schlep presents, stockings and luggage to a grandparents house. They would spend a designated amount of time with each grandparent. Santa would visit whichever house they were at. Sometimes he would visit multiple houses.

As much as they enjoyed spending time with their families, all the schlepping and various Santa visits were starting to take a toll. Plus they realized that never really got to start their own traditions. Yet at the same time, they didn't not want to spend the holidays with their families.

What to do then? Thus the winter solstice celebration was born. Stockings were hung up for the winter solstice and stayed there instead of visiting the grandparents houses. Santa made one visit on the eve of the winter solstice. They had a big fancy dinner on the winter solstice, and each of them got to choose the type of food they wanted. Gifts were exchanged at this dinner. When Christmas itself rolled around, there was no more schlepping. They could just go to the grandparents house and have a Christmas celebration. Yes, an overnight bag might get packed but there was no longer any pressure to have to wake up there Christmas morning to see what Santa had brought.

Their kids are now in their late 20's and early 30's. To this day they still come home for the winter solstice which has now turned into a nice family dinner where they exchange gifts.

I like this story because first of all I think it's just fun. Second though, the holidays can create a lot of pressure, and I like hearing empowering stories from people about what they did to overcome it. Who knows, maybe some year we'll be celebrating the winter solstice. We already celebrate both Christmas and Hanukkah!

A. Elliot's Lesson Learned: The shortest day of the year has a lot to celebrate.

Labels: Holidays

posted by Alex Elliot @ 8:00 PM 2 comments

2 Comments:

At 12/22/2009 6:32 AM, Goofball said…

family traditions are fun and good whenever they are celebrated.

but exchanging gifts on the 20th instead of the 25th...doesn't that simply put the "gift shopping" pressure earlier?

we stopped exchanging gifts in our "larger" family a few years ago and Jan and I give each other something sometime in the coming weeks if we've found something for each other. Not much pressure there. And all my friends already know not to hope from any card from me before mid january.

so really I don't feel any pressure, I'm just enjoying the season!
At 12/23/2009 9:23 PM, Mommy to Tyler & Kendall said…

I don't know why I started thinking about festivus when I was reading the blog but I couldn't stop laughing. Maybe that's what I should celebrate.

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Name:	Alex Elliot
Home:	MA, United States
About Me:	Professional Mom of two cats, a dog, an ant farm, and oh yeah...two boys: a 6 year old and a 3 year old. Also found in my house is my husband who is known on this blog as The Big Giraffe.
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