December Brings Celebration
December Brings Celebration
This last month of the year brings traditions, feasts and frolic! Even the holiday food is cause for celebration.
“The holidays are a time for reflection, resolution and renewal. Whatever our beliefs, they provide us with rituals to celebrate the balance of light and dark and for welcoming the healing powers of warmth back into our world.”
~ Dorothy Morrison, A Celebration of Light and Warmth
The first day of the Winter season appears on Tuesday, the 21st of December. This day marks the shortest time of sunlight and the longest time of darkness. Growing up in an agricultural family and community, I heard numerous “truths” and folklore from the Farmer’s Almanac. Most farmers I knew lived by those sayings. I am no longer a farm-kid, but I do find those sayings interesting and often amusing. Have you heard:
• “A clear star-filled sky on Christmas Eve will bring good crops in the summer.”
• “Snow on Christmas means Easter will be green.”
• “A green Christmas means a white Easter.”
• “If Christmas Day be bright and clear, there’ll be two winters in the year.”
• “The nearer the New Moon to Christmas day, the harder the winter.”
Soon it will be time to put the flannel linens on the bed, get out the heavy coats, hats and gloves and put the snow shovel near the door.
It’s the season to stock up on apple cider and warming spices (cinnamon, clove, nutmeg). Baked apples with those warming spices are a delicious way to warm you during the cold days ahead. Hot cocoa with dash of cinnamon is also a great tummy warmer for this season. These spices not only warm you, but boost your immune system as well.
“The best of all gifts around any Christmas tree: the presence of a happy family all wrapped up in each other.” ~Burton Hillis