Happy Winter Solstice, Whoop Whoop!

Hola darlings!

I am very happy today, and relieved too, because I know after today, and it's gloomy 4:00 p.m. darkness and plugging in the lights on the Christmas tree at 3:30 p.m., that the days will begin to get a little longer each day.  Whew!   It's been a dark, overcast, gloomy, foggy (!) November and December in southeastern Wisconsin -- crazy weather!  Little sunshine and even people who do not suffer from seasonal affective disorder were feeling it -- the constant gloom is wearing on the spirit.  It sure wore on me this year, geez!

Above is this year's version of the Xmas tree.  It has far LESS ornaments on it than I usually throw on because I was working against a time deadline to have things ready for the annual investment club gift exchange that is held at my house each year.  This year it was on December 7th -- very early, but it was the date that worked best for all of us during this holiday season.  I made up for the relative lack of glitz and shimmer on the tree by putting it elsewhere in my small living room.  Don't worry darlings, I will not bombard you with "decorating" pictures.  Next year I'll deck out the gigantic picture window behind the tree with hundreds of flashing lights and hope a jetliner doesn't mistake my house for a landing strip at Mitchell International Airport.

To me, Christmas is a festival of lights time of year.  We in the western tradition who live in the northern hemisphere tend to fill our houses up with lots of lights, glitz, glamour and glow, fighting a fierce battle against the ever-encroaching darkness. We gather around our hearths (real and artificial) and wrap ourselves in layers of wool, knits, fleece and fur to keep the cold at bay.  We eat more and pack on an extra layer of fat!  Gold and silver colors, candlelight, firelight and lots of shine and sparkle abound as we deck our halls for the end of year celebrations.  For myself, I am certain that this urge to surround ourselves with as much light and shine and glowy things as we can pack into our houses is a genetic response to the lack of sunlight we suffer through for weeks/months at a time during the winter.  Darkness and cold -- the eternal enemies.  For me, Winter Solstice marks a huge psychological sigh of relief and is cause for personal celebration, totally separate from any religious celebration(s) that others may be celebrating time of year.

Happy Winter Solstice!

I Missed the End of the World AND the Winter Solstice

Geez, there's just no telling what may happen once I start cleaning the house and getting ready to entertain.  I totally missed the end of the world, for instance.  I waited for it to come all day while at the office but nope, totally missed it.  It must have happened either when I was sleeping or later on last night when I was laying the dining table for lunch today, putzing around with tablecloths and placemats and trying different centerpiece arrangements.  Hmmm.....  Ancient Mayan joke:  What comes after a Baktun?  Answer:  Another Baktun, bwwwaaahhhaaaaaa!  Well, okay, it sounds funnier in my head when I tell it to myself :)

Evidently the modern-day Mayans believe that the end of a baktun is just the start of a new era, rather like 1999 rolling around to 2000.  Oh wait - weren't there millions of people thinking the world was going to end THEN, too?  Planes were going to fall from the sky, computers were going to explode, we were all going to starve because everything would stop working, etc. etc.  Geez. 

I also totally missed the Solstice.  Forgot all about it, in fact.  I knew it was coming, because I had commented about it to someone at the office on Thursday that the days that would finally start to get a little longer each day.  The worst is over now, except for below zero temperatures that usually happen around here in January and February and, of course, snow storms.  Don't know how I'm going to cope with those since I am under orders to not ever do any snow shoveling ever again.  So today I shoveled, but only a little, because there was only a little snow in my driveway.  And it's frozen hard.  The first great blizzard of 2012 in Wisconsin missed Milwaukee but left a lot of rain, sleet, slush and about an inch of wet heavy snow on top of all that froze overnight and Friday morning when I walked down the driveway headed toward the bus to go to the office, it was crunch crunch crunch.  I probably should have gotten up at 4 a.m. and shoveled out.  Nah. 

So this morning the sun was warm even though the temperature was cold.  I pulled out my trusty old shovel and headed outdoors, soon working up a sweat.  It was mostly useless exercise, I hardly was able to scrape up any of the frozen snow.  Oh well.  I put down some salt and hope it will be sunny tomorrow and it will melt away.

Lunch today, however, was a great success.  I love entertaining.  I should do it more often.  I enjoy cooking and cleaning to get the house ready for guests doesn't feel quite so boring and burdensome as necessary dusting and vacuuming once a week.  Must do that tomorrow.  During the Packers game.  If they are doing badly and I don't want to hear the announcers (the t.v. announcers suck anyway), I just turn on the vacuum and go to it!  If I get curious, I can always take a peek at the t.v. out of the corner of my eye. 

Anyway, some 5,000 people showed up for the Solstice at Stonehenge, which according to this BBC article, is about five times as many as the usual crowd.  Were they expecting maybe the earth to move beneath their feet and swallow them all up or something?  Take a look at this motley group:

I wouldn't these guys as extras for a zombie movie, geez!  Does the dude with the cheap imitation pirate hat really think that back scratcher is going to - well -- what, exactly?  LOL!  Maybe he was hoping to use it to pick up women's skirts surreptitiously, only no chicks showed up wearing skirts.  I mean - skirts at Stonehenge in winter?  Ha!  I'm thinking the stones were all rather relieved once this group dispersed, yeah, the nutters are gone for another year...

A New Twist on the Meaning of "Ho Ho Ho"

From mytowerhamlets.co.uk
17th December, Saturnalia     
Spitalfieldslife.com
Published: 12:03 AM, 17 December 2011
Paul Bonn
Today marks the start of Saturnalia, an ancient Roman festival in honor of the god Saturnus. One of the most popular Roman festivals, it was marked by tomfoolery, mayhem, merriment and the reversal of social roles, in which slaves and masters switched places (much like the Lord of Misrule in medieval celebrations).

Saturnalia was introduced around 217 BCE to raise morale after a crushing military defeat at the hands of the Carthaginians. Originally celebrated for a day on December 17th, its popularity saw it grow until it became a week-long extravaganza, ending on the 23rd. Efforts to shorten the celebration were unsuccessful – Augustus tried to reduce it to three days and Caligula to five (Party poopers! How did they get the reputation of being hell-raisers?), but these attempts caused uproar and revolt among the Roman citizens.

Saturnalia involved the conventional sacrifices, a couch (lectisternium) set out in front of the temple of Saturnus and the untying of the ropes that bound the statue of Saturnus during the rest of the year. A Saturnalicius princeps was elected master of ceremonies for the proceedings and, besides the public rites, there were a series of holidays and customs celebrated privately – including a school holiday, the making and giving of small presents (saturnalia et sigillaricia) and a special market (sigillaria). And gambling was allowed for all, even slaves.

Saturnalia was a time to eat, drink and be merry. The toga was not worn, but rather colorful and informal ‘dinner clothes’ and the pileus (a freedman’s hat, close-fitting and brimless like a fez) was worn by everyone. Slaves were exempt from punishment and treated their masters with (a pretense of) disrespect, celebrating a banquet before, with, or served by the masters. Yet the reversal of the social order was mostly superficial – the banquet would often be prepared by the slaves and they would prepare their masters’ dinner as well. It was license within careful boundaries, reversing the social order without subverting it.

The customary greeting for the occasion is a “Io, Saturnalia!” — Io (pronounced “e-o”) being a Latin interjection related to “ho” (as in “Ho, praise to Saturn”).

Saturnus was the Roman god of agriculture and harvest whose reign was described as a Golden Age of abundance and peace by many authors. In medieval times, he was known as the Roman god of dance, agriculture, justice and strength, often portayed holding a sickle or scythe in one hand and a bundle of wheat in the other. Saturnus is sometimes identified with the Greek Cronus, the god of Time (hence chronological, chronic, &c.) who famously ate his children. Fear not, the children were later regurgitated intact through the intervention of their mother and went on to become the gods of Olympus! A gruesome tale, yet viewed metaphorically it can be seen as a simple moral – that Time eats everything in the end.