And Today...
Today many of us yearn to make the holiday season
more meaningful, more loving, perhaps more spiritual.

Candlegrove traces the winter holiday season daily from Thanksgiving through Epiphany.

November 27, 2007

Waverly Fitzgerald's wonderful School of the Seasons lists other ancient names for November. For example, for one northern tribe, it was considered Thumb Month (because the light is so short women can only make the thumb of a glove in 1 day).

Here in San Francisco, we still have just less than 10 hours of daylight. This will dwindle down to a little more than 9 and 1/2 hours of daylight at winter solstice at our latitude. Are you noticing the dwindling daylight where you are?

Revels: In Celebration of the Winter Solstice

The Christmas Revels are a wonderful way to celebrate and rediscover some of the holiday season's more ancient traditions. Revels performances blend song, dance and drama into seasonal celebrations that demonstrate how cultures in all times are fed by the same great river of myth, story and song.

PPerformances take place the first couple weeks in December in 9 cities:
Boulder, Colorado
Cambridge/Boston, Massachusetts
Hanover, New Hampshire
Houston, Texas
Oakland, California
New York City
Portland, Oregon
Tacoma, Washington
Washington, DC

Even if you've never been to a Revels performance, you can also enjoy music from the Revels. Visit the Revels Web site to order online. Here are selections available from Amazon.com:

Behold That Star American Folk Christmas songs
Wassail! Wassail! Music of the season from Early Appalachian, African-American, Shaker and Native American folk traditions
Sing We Now of Christmas Six centuries of French, British, Russian, Hebrew, Polish and Czech music of the season
Christmas Revels Collection A boxed set, four disks that extends the six centuries collection even further
The Christmas Revels Renaissance and Medieval Christmas music
Christmas in an Irish Castle Celtic Christmas tunes, from the California Revels company
A Child's Christmas Revels Tunes by the Revels Children's Chorus
A Victorian Christmas Some old favorites, some you've probably never heard before
Rose and Thistle English and Scottish holiday music

Read our interviews with:

Waverly Fitzgerald, of School of the Seasons

Sheryl Karas, author of The Solstice Evergreen

Winter Solstice 2007: Dec 22, 6:08 am Universal Time

Be sure to adjust for your time zone:
EST: Dec 22, 1:08 am
CST: Dec 22, 12:08 am
MST: Dec 21, 11:08 pm
PST: Dec 21, 10:08 pm

If your holiday celebration depends on knowing sunrise and/or sunset times for winter solstice or any other day in your location, find it online at the U.S. Naval Observatory. The database covers 22,000 US locations. For world locations, you'll need your latitude and longitude.

This site also lists solstices and equinoxes through 2020. You'll need to convert to your time zone from Universal Time.


Planning your holidays?

Some simple ideas for celebrating Winter Solstice.

Read other ideas from Candlegrove visitors.

Or share your plans with others by leaving me feedback.

New documentary to watch for

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