Diwali comes earlier, on 5th November this year, so hardly a midwinter celebration although the nights will be dark enough for a Festival of Lights to be very uplifting!
We have what can only be described as a mixed tradition here, and celebrate 'Chrismanukkah' while recognising that Yule and its variants are the original midwinter festivals.
It seems that Mankind has always felt the need to look forward to a celebration that recognises that the darkness of winter will not last forever, and so many of the festivals take place around the time of the Winter Solstice when, at last, the hours of daylight begin to stretch out little by little as the hours of darkness recede and Spring approaches.
These pictures come from 2008, our first winter in our new home.
In my wilder fantasies I like to think that the house renovations will be completed by mid-winter 2010! Since the pictures were taken, most of the rest of the house has been finished, but in the sitting room nothing much has changed except that the room is newly plastered! I guess we've saved the most enjoyable project until last, but whether we will eat Christmas Dinner from our dining table or the camping table we currently use is open for discussion!
We bought the Hanukkiya (Hanukkah menorah) in Golders Green before we were married - David decided on the modern design though given a free rein I might have been inclined to go for a more traditional one. This one has however grown on me over the years, and I really enjoy seeing it every year now and think he chose wisely.
Every family has its own midwinter festival traditions and there are no rights and wrongs about how to celebrate the festive season, so long as it's all about love, sharing and charity rather than greed, extravagance and showing off.
I hope that, as the current move towards living in simplicity and sincerity increases, the emphasis will once more be on home-made gifts created with love, and on valuing what we already have rather than spending on a load of new stuff to decorate our homes in whatever the marketing gurus have decided will be this year's 'key look'.
They can't sell you priceless memories, and you probably already have a boxful of those in the attic just waiting to be brought down, dusted off and hung on the tree!
Your Christmas won't be any better just because you obeyed the stylists' edict to spend, spend, spend - guaranteed to come from the chain stores, and from the glossy magazines!
But it might be a whole heap better if you spent time rather than money, and gave love rather than lucre!
I agree...down with the consumer driven 'holiday' and up with the love of handmade. I've already started thinking about what I am to make, and I really think people appreciate it. Like a little black box of love someone I know received recently :) xx
ReplyDeleteHi nice to meet you had a lovely read of you blog I will go to the ,library and get out the River Cottage preserves book.
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