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 22, 2007`

So the "longest night" has passed, and today's sunrise brings the promise of longer days. I've always found it a little strange that this transition is called the "first day" of winter. But perhaps there's good reason.

When the days begin to lengthen
Then the cold begins to strengthen

A Candlegrove visitor asks:
You would think that since the days are getting longer, the northern hemisphere would get warmer. However it gets colder. Why?

The answer is a phenomenon called seasonal lag. According to the radio program Earth and Sky, Earth's weather results from many factors, including the length of the daylight and the angle of the sun's rays. But what figures most prominently in our weather is the balance between incoming solar heat and outgoing infrared radiation leaving the Earth's surface.

Earth's continents and oceans store heat. They take awhile to cool off completely. By January or February, this rate of cooling finally overtakes the rate at which the northern hemisphere is heated by the sun. As the earth moves along in its orbit and the northern hemisphere again begins to lean toward the sun, the strengthening sun again has its warming effect.

`Tips for the day`

Practical things you can time around solstice: change batteries in smoke alarms and clocks; rotate mattresses, fertilize houseplants, schedule medical or dental check-ups. Cleaning the house for your holiday celebration? Make of that a ritual, too! As you do it, think of the "inner housecleaning" you'd like to do for the new year. What would you like to leave behind? Scrub it away!

Listen to a podcast of my radio interview with Sandi Billings, Yin Radio from Moscow, Idaho

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.

Still looking for a way to honor the winter solstice?

Scroll down this page from Beliefnet for a couple articles that can give you ideas about the essential elements of a winter solstice 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

Read our interviews with:

Waverly Fitzgerald, of School of the Seasons

Sheryl Karas, author of The Solstice Evergreen

Inner Advent & Inner Christmas

From counselor and writer Lynn Jericho, ideas for Inner Christmas — a meaningful and enriching process of self-reflection from December 25 to January 6. Sign up for daily emails at her site.

Ready for online holiday music?

Browse Live 365's listing of over a hundred holiday/seasonal stations.

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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