Wishing you and yours a blessed, warm, and safe Yuletide on this shortest day. This greeting was printed inside my first Dona Nobis Pacem card in 2000, the first year I produced it as a personal card. I was having a lot of fun with my new parallel pen!
This year, winter solstice observances are modest, as I am working round the clock in the studio to finish a rush job, between naps to ward off the obligatory winter respiratory plague. We will gather the family this evening for a quiet circle and share stories, a tradition I learned from my Persian friend who tells me that their celebration of the winter solstice, yalda, is marked by storytelling into the night. Apart from all the revelry and glitz, it is good to remember this quiet, inward time, the dark of gestation and the seed of a new hope for the new year. Peace is the seed I plant this year. May it be so for you!
I love the idea of storytelling as a Solstice eve activity. Stories are what bind us together, give us continuity and a sense of our past as the soil from which our future grows. My mom and stepdad recently switched from celebrating Christmas to celebrating the Solstice; I shall pass this on to them, I think this would be a tradition that would really resonate with them. Thanks for sharing!
Michele, We have been celebrating solstice as a family since the kids were small and have done a lot of different things on this night, but I have to say that the storytelling was one of the most fun things we have ever done. Especially between generations, or as the kids bring in their beloveds, it has such value. And I think we can get a lot of a mileage out of it for future solstices. There are so many stories to share!