Solstice Light

[sartorias]

This amazing story of team effort to save lives is cast as a Christmas post, but really, it could as easily have gone up last week during Chanukah, or over the weekend to celebrate the return of the sun, or in acknowledgement of the better nature of human beings, whether couched in terms of spiritual uplift or not

Comments

[anna_wing]

I was in Vienna several years ago at the beginning of December, when the Christmas markets had begun and the lights were up. It really struck me, seeing a continental winter (grey, black, white, quite unlike the UK, where the fields were still green and there was little snow, at least in the South or London), how significant Christmas as a mid-winter festival must have been for Europeans. That whole light-in-the-darkness thing actually made sense at a visceral level, for the first time.

[sartorias]

Yes! Here, where as often as not we have ninety degree heat waves, the fake snow, etc, seems kind of odd, and the heavy traditional dinner can be a real chore. But in places where there is cold and dark, suddenly meaning snaps into place.

[negothick]

Commenting after spending Christmas with my brother's in-laws, who once were strict Baptists (and one Episcopalian), but now more relaxed about it. It used to be more uncomfortable for me, when the older generation were all alive, hosting the event, and conversation really awkward for the aliens--Jews and Northerners--in their midst. I think the Northern part was even worst than the Jewish part in their minds. But now my niece's generation of Virginians includes her boyfriend--Vietnamese--her best friends--a Cambodian-Chinese young woman and (most amazing of all) a young man of mixed racial background who had been adopted by a traditional African-American family. They all speak Standard American teen-speak (sigh) without a trace of a Virginia accent, and they all have no discernible religion. In their company, I seem comfortingly old-fashioned and traditional. Times change.

[sartorias]

Yes they do!

[negothick]

It also reminded me of how my family has dwindled. My brother is my only surviving blood relative (my niece is adopted). Everyone from the generations before us is gone, except some second and third cousins who might share a common great- or great-great grandparent. In turn, my niece had every one of her surviving family members in that room-a total of seven. She has one cousin. Sorry for the morbid musings. . .happier days to you and yours!

[sartorias]

Go right ahead. It isn't anything I haven't also been noticing at this end of the continent.

[asakiyume]

I agree: I'd like to imagine everyone with some sort of festival they can celebrate in the dark time of the year (which in the Southern Hemisphere would be in June--but in the Northern Hemisphere, now)