The Holiday Season: 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.

`December 15, 2007`

In Puerto Rico, it is Navidades. The holiday season there extends from mid-December to Epiphany (January 6), and includes elaborate nativity scenes, carolers, trees, special foods, and gift exchanges on both Christmas Day and Epiphany.

`A great weekend for holiday baking`

Some lore and links:

Did you know that the lowly pretzel was originally a seasonal symbol? The original form was a circle of dough with a cross in the center, to represent the wheel of the year with the four seasons marked. The present form of a pretzel is just a variation of this form caused by creating it from a single piece of dough. Seem unlikely? Well, it came from one of my books. Pretzel wreaths are a popular Christmas craft. Here's a yummy chocolate-covered pretzel wreath.

Why not try baking a few pretzels of your own?

Holiday favorites
Baked ornaments made from cinnamon and applesauce from Penzeys Spices (pdf)

Encyclopedic holiday cookie recipe listing from All Recipes.com

Here's another great set of recipes, Food Network's 12 Days of Cookies

In my family, favorites include pizzelles and biscotti

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.

Considering a winter solstice ritual?

Scroll down this page from Beliefnet for a couple articles that can give you ideas about the essential elements of a winter solstic ritual
Or here's a more formal ritual for a group, Tacoma's Welcome Yule Ceremony.
Excellent tips from School of the Seasons
Don Orne invites prayer and meditation on winter solstice as World Peace Day

Make a winter solstice wreath
Step by Step instructions

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This season's archive

A note about the commerce links on this site: Candlegrove is essentially non-commercial. In some cases, links from this site yield a small affiliate fee. Half of all funds generated by such links help sustain this site. The other half is donated to environmental organizations.

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