About Winter Solstice
December 21 - January 4
The longest night falls. The darkest day of the year is here. It seems the world is dormant in winter, waiting for life to begin again. . . yet we know that, even now, life is beginning all around us, stirring beneath the snow. With the dawn on Winter Solstice, the light begins to return. This is a season of endings and beginnings - and much, much celebration! As we change from one calendar year to the next, we look forward to warmer, brighter days ahead, and share with loved ones around us the warmth and light that comes from within.
Winter Solstice
Podcast Episode
In this special double-length episode, Alexis and Kit celebrate the long Winter Solstice night with music, recipes, books, and joyful traditions of the holiday season. Together, they look forward to the coming new year.
Click here for poems & songs featured in this episode.
Words of the Season
In the Sky
Starry Nights
In the Ground & Water
In Our Lives
The Winter Solstice
The wren and the robin
The Holly and the Oak King
The Yule Cat
The Dongzhi Festival
Making mochi
Ozoni soup
Sunrise walks
Winter spirals
Caroling and carols
The Nutcracker
Charles Dickens
Blue Christmas
Gingerbread
Lille Julaften or Little Christmas Eve
Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women
Hot drinks
Wassail and wassailing
Amazake
Milk & cookies
Jolabokflod or the Christmas Book Flood, Christmas Cake
Boxing Day and the Feast of Saint Stephen
Romjul
O-souji
Nengajo or New Year’s cards
Osechi ryori
Toshikoshi Soba or Year End Soba
New Year’s Eve
Recommended
Reading
Discover the original story to the holiday classic – full of princesses, astronomers, and apprentices – The Nutcracker Prince by E. T. A. Hoffman, illustrated by Maurice Sendak
Sacred Nature by Karen Armstrong is a good way to start the New Year, a reminder of our fundamental connection with nature on an everyday level that has existed for millenia
Tamsin by Peter S. Beagle – if the idea of the paranormal during the yuletide stirs something within you, enjoy this lesser-known work by Beagle, author of The Last Unicorn