A long holiday is more than a few days off, it’s a trip back through time.  Reconnecting with family and friends drops us back into conversations and simple glints in the eye that send us back to who we were long ago.  To our parents, we will always be the child they lovingly shielded from the darkness or spent hours crafting a perfect holiday for.  To our childhood friends we are still the kids who had small adventures together.  The traditions that set the scene for all this are as varied as our lives, but they often involve rituals around a television watching a holiday special or sports.

This isn’t a bad thing, necessarily, it’s just what most of us do.

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Tomorrow is, for my family and me, the big Winter holiday.  The Solstice is precisely at 23:38 GMT (5:38 PM CST) on 21 December, always right on schedule. At this moment, the northern hemisphere will be at its darkest, but also starts turning back towards the sun. We celebrate it by blowing out the many candles that are lit and enjoying a few moments without light or sound – just the music of the spheres to contemplate for a moment. This is our holiday for the season.

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This piece is a repeat from two years ago – I don’t have anything to add.  The re-run gives me more time to enjoy the day.  Sláinte!

Good people go to Heaven, but the Celts went everywhere. There isn’t a corner of the globe where you can’t find us if you look hard enough. Nations as far flung as Canada and Australia are largely Celtic in origin, and the majority of those Celts came from Ireland.