Winter Solstice moves between December 21 and December 22...has to do with the earth's rotation, an explanation a bit too long to go into here.. but this year, 2011, Solstice is officially on December 22. We personally usually stay with December 21, for convenience sake. (I checked wikipedia -- it lists it as December 22, as well?)
While some pagan religions celebrate the Solstice in formal ways, it is not in any way a religious holiday for us...but simply an alternative to Christmas or Hanukah. In ancient times it was a time when people were alarmed that the gods had taken away the sun (as the winter solstice falls on the darkest night of the year), so bonfires were lit, both large and small, to encourage the gods to bring back the light. And since the dark was a very dangerous time (marauders were everywhere, predators both human and animal abound), people carried torches with them. There is some suggestion that the lighting of the Christmas trees was in homage to that, and to brighten an otherwise very dark period of time.
We live in the country where burning is permissible in winter (so long as there is snow on the ground...which there usually is by then!). So during fall cleanup we pull together a large brush and wood pile. On December 21, friends come over and we share a meal (pot luck, although someone usually offers to do a turkey or ham and the rest bring appropriate side dishes), all the usual holiday treats (too many sweets! :) ), and then with a hot drink in hand, all go out to the bonfire, light it, cheer, sing christmas carols and other songs (often we lapse into '60's covers...all of us being from that era). When the fire dies down a couple of the guys hang out there to make sure it goes completely out; the rest of us troop back inside and warm up with more hot cocoa/rum/whatever. And then the party's over.
No gift exchange, no frantic rush to the store to buy something last minute because you forgot someone, no mention of church, birth of baby Jesus (who, after all, wasn't actually born on December 25 anyway; that's an early church designation, to keep things simple, much like our deciding to always celebrate solstice on December 21), no reverence whatever -- just friends having a mid-winter party.
Neither my husband nor I...nor several of our friends...are religious. We (husband and I) are not Christian. That is, while we ascribe to some of the teachings of the rabbi (which means "teacher") Jesus, we don't believe that he is a god, or the son of god, or "conceived of a virgin birth" ("virgin is actually a mistranslation of the original Greek; it should be "young woman") "born again", or "rose from the dead". While obviously his words..or what are thought to be his words...are powerful, so powerful that they've remained known for centuries, we believe that there are equally powerful words in other faith traditions, Judaism, Hindi, Buddist, Islam, Native American, and others, and we follow them as well.
What we *don't* ascribe to is the greed that has become "christmas" -- buying gifts for people who already have more than they need; the obligatory gift exchange when there are people around us who do not have enough food, shelter, etc.; commercialism that has (in our minds) taken over what should be a religious holiday celebrated by those who believe, and quietly respected by the rest of us. Since that's not gonna happen, we choose to ignore it and celebrate solstice by ourselves, we and our friends. We set aside whatever money we would have spent on gift giving and send it to a charity (in recent years, FeedAmerica, and designate our local geographic area), where, they claim, they can feed people for less than $1 each. We encourage our friends and family to do the same. And enjoy ourselves with the party.
Probably more than you want to know.
While some pagan religions celebrate the Solstice in formal ways, it is not in any way a religious holiday for us...but simply an alternative to Christmas or Hanukah. In ancient times it was a time when people were alarmed that the gods had taken away the sun (as the winter solstice falls on the darkest night of the year), so bonfires were lit, both large and small, to encourage the gods to bring back the light. And since the dark was a very dangerous time (marauders were everywhere, predators both human and animal abound), people carried torches with them. There is some suggestion that the lighting of the Christmas trees was in homage to that, and to brighten an otherwise very dark period of time.
We live in the country where burning is permissible in winter (so long as there is snow on the ground...which there usually is by then!). So during fall cleanup we pull together a large brush and wood pile. On December 21, friends come over and we share a meal (pot luck, although someone usually offers to do a turkey or ham and the rest bring appropriate side dishes), all the usual holiday treats (too many sweets! :) ), and then with a hot drink in hand, all go out to the bonfire, light it, cheer, sing christmas carols and other songs (often we lapse into '60's covers...all of us being from that era). When the fire dies down a couple of the guys hang out there to make sure it goes completely out; the rest of us troop back inside and warm up with more hot cocoa/rum/whatever. And then the party's over.
No gift exchange, no frantic rush to the store to buy something last minute because you forgot someone, no mention of church, birth of baby Jesus (who, after all, wasn't actually born on December 25 anyway; that's an early church designation, to keep things simple, much like our deciding to always celebrate solstice on December 21), no reverence whatever -- just friends having a mid-winter party.
Neither my husband nor I...nor several of our friends...are religious. We (husband and I) are not Christian. That is, while we ascribe to some of the teachings of the rabbi (which means "teacher") Jesus, we don't believe that he is a god, or the son of god, or "conceived of a virgin birth" ("virgin is actually a mistranslation of the original Greek; it should be "young woman") "born again", or "rose from the dead". While obviously his words..or what are thought to be his words...are powerful, so powerful that they've remained known for centuries, we believe that there are equally powerful words in other faith traditions, Judaism, Hindi, Buddist, Islam, Native American, and others, and we follow them as well.
What we *don't* ascribe to is the greed that has become "christmas" -- buying gifts for people who already have more than they need; the obligatory gift exchange when there are people around us who do not have enough food, shelter, etc.; commercialism that has (in our minds) taken over what should be a religious holiday celebrated by those who believe, and quietly respected by the rest of us. Since that's not gonna happen, we choose to ignore it and celebrate solstice by ourselves, we and our friends. We set aside whatever money we would have spent on gift giving and send it to a charity (in recent years, FeedAmerica, and designate our local geographic area), where, they claim, they can feed people for less than $1 each. We encourage our friends and family to do the same. And enjoy ourselves with the party.
Probably more than you want to know.
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