Merry Christmas

We are under way with Christmas celebrations here around the house. We've already had our traditional cinnamon roll breakfast and opened the presents. Johanna is in getting ready for us to head out to the movies and I'm in here posting the Merry Christmas blog message (as if this post wasn't evidence of that).

Anyway, I was thinking about how all cultures have a winter festival. It's just that time of year. When we were in Cancun we visited the Incan ruins and we learned about their calender. They would take the time off between the solstice and the new year as a festival. In fact their calendar runs up until the solstice and then resumes after the new year, with the time in between marked as a strange time that needs to be festival.

Before it was Christmas, the 25th was marked by the pagans. As winter approaches, the sun rose lower and lower on the horizon. Always moving a bit south every day, until the winter solstice on Dec. 22nd. It would rise at that lowest point on the horizon for 3 days and then magically on the 25th, it would start it's move northward again. With that move, the slow march back toward spring had begun. A worthy thing for festival indeed.

Here in our little corner of the world, I'm here at home with a weeks vacation spending time celebrating the end of this year and the renewal of the new year.

My Christmas wish is that we all continue to reach out the rest of the year with the camaraderie that we feel during this season. That we find ways to see the similarities between all men and not obsess on the petty differences. That we seek to find ways to elevate ourselves to the angels we aspire to be and reject the impulses that seek to tear us apart.

Johanna and I wish all the best to you and yours this holiday season.

Merry Christmas.