Sandy Snowman

The stores and the radio are full of songs about dashing through the snow and letting it snow and all forms of a white Christmas. But for half of the world this is summer, and even many of us in the Northern Hemisphere will never see snow. Oftentimes the picture that the world paints of what our holidays should look like has very little correspondence with reality. Far better to build a “snowman” on the beach than to fret about how your life doesn’t match someone else’s picture.

What unconventional bits of your holidays do you treasure?

Last Night of Hanukkah

Throughout the eight nights of Hanukkah it is traditional to play a sort of gambling game with the dreidel, a little top with Hebrew characters on the side which indicate how many pieces you may take out or must put in. But the game only works because at the start of each round each player contributes to the common pot. You never know how much you will take out; you only know that the game is possible because each person contributes.

What will you put in for the common pot of a community today?

Santa Lucia Day

In Sweden Santa Lucia, or Saint Lucy’s Day is welcomed in by a girl with a crown of evergreens and candles on her head. January 13 was the solstice in the old, Julian candle, so the day honoring Saint Lucy was a way of ushering in the growing light. But in Sweden you will have to wait quite a long time past December before you will see much of any light at all.

How do you find patience to wait for the light when it is nowhere to be seen?

Advent Calendar

Many families that celebrate Christmas welcome in the season with an Advent calendar that has a little window that opens on a special picture for each night of the Advent season, or which harbors a small treat to be discovered each day.

How might it change your experience of this season if you looked at each day with the expectation that it was holding some little hidden treat for you?