Ah, the weather gods favored us with a bright sunny day again today. Just when we needed it most. We needed a boost after all that cloudiness for what seemed like a week and all that rain two days ago. The Miami River was still swollen. I'm trying not to get my hopes up but the weather channel was still forecasting snow for us on Wednesday. The Big Day. Why do we crave snow on Christmas so much? I'm thinking because it goes hand-in-hand with that warm, cozy, family feeling that Christmas evokes. Happy Winter Solstice! One last long winter night and we start the trek back to more daylight. Woo hoo! Not to burst anyone's bubble about Christmas but here are the facts, ma'am: "Historically, the winter solstice has had a rather checkered past. For hundreds of years, many people believed that the changing seasons and fluctuating hours of sunlight were controlled by a group of deities known as sun gods. The early pagans celebrated the Winter Solstice by honoring those gods with a variety of festivals and rituals designed to curry the gods' favor and ensure the sun's speedy return. In the Roman Empire, the Winter Solstice was further recognized by the celebration of the 'Birthday of the Sun' on December 25th." "In the fourth century A.D., church leaders in Rome attempted to eliminate the pagan festivities by adopting December 25th as Christ's birthday. They hoped to replace the pagan customs with Christian traditions. The effort was never completely successful, however, and eventually many Winter Solstice customs were incorporated into Christmas observances. " You can do your own search on the Internet if you like and read lots more about it. Don't take my word on it. I'm not here to get into a religious discussion. But since I'm not a church-goer anymore I've had to rethink the reason I still celebrate Christmas. I've come up with family. Family memories, family togetherness. Can you think of any other time of the year that family members will push so hard to get back to their families for a visit? I can't. Maybe for a funeral but that doesn't have the pull that the charm of Christmas does. Another reason is that people are generally happier and friendlier this time of year. So, I celebrate the glow of humanity. If I think deep and hard about Christmas, I do wonder at the fact that it is still around and that so much time and effort is devoted to it. The whole month of December might as well be called Christmasber. We Americans start gearing up for Christmas just before Thanksgiving even. And, thirdly, I celebrate the lights. The red and green and white and blue and yellow lights that festoon the houses this time of year. Some very gaudy--every niche in the yard has some glowing, twinkling object in it; some very simple--a single strand around the porch. Whatever your flavor of lighting, I celebrate the brightness calling out to the dark. Scaring away the darkness, harking back to pagan times again. Here's one website that has a lot more detail about the winter solstice and ancient customs--Children of the Moon. This is why I find it so hard now to celebrate Christmas as the birth of Jesus. All these years we have been lied to by the church about where our traditions came from. All these years we have been made to think what a horrible thing it is to be pagan. YET...all of our Christmas traditions are pagan in origin. How ironic, eh?