Winter Solstice - Doing Things Differently

[Randomnerd]

Shaking off old ways - expected ways - of being isn’t always easy: carbon-frame roadies may struggle to value or understand steel bimblers; tense van drivers may struggle to not close pass cyclists and vexed struggle to not shout filthy invectives into their slipstream….

Annual commercial, religious festivals leave me cold: they mean very little to me. This year I rang the changes.

We - my girlfriend, and the dog (two close friends were invited, but a virus scare sadly kept them away) - celebrated Solstice Instead of Christmas. We exchanged a few presents, spent daylight hours outdoors and rounded the solstice with a bonfire I’d built in the shape of a pointed sun, to call in the warmth of spring and see off the old year. Fish and spuds were baked in the embers, washed down with a glug of fizz.

Refreshing that our celebrations of the changing year are done with. I acknowledge how fortunate I am to be able to do all this - I am not judging the “normal” celebrations; they’re just not for me or many of my tribe

🔅What have you done differently this year to mark the change? How did it feel?
🔅Any pagan cyclists online? Do I qualify yet?
🔅Any other thoughts?

I’ve come away from it feeling really refreshed, but still have peer pressure to be involved with family and friends’ events, for which i no longer have the appetite. Maybe I will send out more invites next year?

 

[Oldhippy]

Don't do Xmas either. Commercial excess that defies belief these days. I do give my time to those that need it instead.

 

[ClichéGuevara]

I don't think we've ever had what could be described as a 'normal' Christmas. I haven't sent a Christmas card in years. I've even been known to cross the name out on a present I've been given and hand it back to the person unopened, arguing they must like it, as they chose it, and it's the thought that counts. It doesn't go down well though.

I get irritated at the waste, and the shops being rammed because some panic they may close for half a day, and other people get in to debt trying to conform to the marketing teams'demands', and don't get me started on the amateurs bunging the pubs up for their annual 'screech while watching others have fun' day out.

For a variety of reasons, we've always had 'Christmas' on a day other than Christmas Day, and is more an excuse just to get the immediate family together. It works really well with youngsters, because they really don't know what day Santa's liable to be coming, so we can really build the anticipation.

I buy people things through the year because I see something I think they'd like, or that they need. I don't appreciate being bullied in to having to buy someone a token just because of peer pressure, so I decline to be involved.

I did mention previously that I'm a proper grinch.

 

[All uphill]

Good for you!

Doing what feels right to you, rather than doing what the marketing people think we should.

 

[Fab Foodie]

I like the idea of celebrating the Solstice rather than Christmas...I shall give it some thought....

 

[mistyoptic]

We generally have our family get-together late November/early December because it suits the family timetable. Always slightly nauseated by the christmas TV ads showing ridiculous amounts of food on a table.

Do others wonder, as I do, at the adverts which seem to imply that you're really mean if you didn't buy (insert recipient) the latest iPhone, or whatever, as a christmas gift. Do people really do that? No wonder there's so much debt

 

[Dayvo]

This will be my very first Christmas (since I was a very wee lad) that I haven’t bought/given a present to anyone and not because my Scrooge side has got the better of me this year.
I became single in April after 12+ years and am no longer part of her large family.
Previously when single, when my parents were still alive, I’d return to England and visit them and my brother and sister and their families.
I must admit to liking Randomnerd’s winter/Pagan celebration as I identify more with that than the so-called ’traditional’ Christmas, which has little-to-nothing to do with the birth of a boy in Bethlehem (not that I’m religious in the slightest).
Saturday will be ’just another day’ as far as I’m concerned, except for ’better’ TV.
I have splashed out and bought a small cake and pudding, and some mince pies, but I could eat them any time of the year, TBH.
But I wish YOU ALL the best this Christmas, however/wherever you spend it, let’s hope that next year is an improvement on the last two.

 

[derrick]

My other half has always celebrated Winter Salstice. Makes pressies for all our friends. She has never liked Christmas. I will go along with any celebrations, as long as it involves beer. Some of the things my wife makes.

 

[oldwheels]

I will be doing just as I do every other day of the year. If weather is suitable go out on my trike.
At my age cards do come in handy to get an indication that people from my past who I have not been in touch with recently are still alive and I send an email in return with a photo if I get a card.
I usually get an epistle from the best man at our wedding in 1960 who turned into a Church of Scotland minister. I had hoped to visit him but the last couple of years have not been possible due to the virus. Nothing so far this year which means he may have gone before me and I am not in touch with his family.

 

[annedonnelly]

I like the idea of celebrating the solstice. I'm sure we'd all be better off if we were more in tune with the earth and the sun and their cycles.

 

[Moon bunny]

Having rejected the concept of an Abrahamic God many years ago, I am what some would call “Pagan” but I don’t like the word, it was an early Christian insult to those living outside the cities.
Remember that the early Christians took over the old Winter festivals for their own ends, much of what we call Christmas is a celebration of the solstice, the decorations, the excessive eating, drinking and so on, if Jesus had never been born-probably in September by the way-most of Yule would be pretty much the same today, and probably just as commercialised, just as everything else from sport to funerals is. So, if you want to celebrate Winter Solstice, just carry on with the normal traditions, just don’t mention Jesus.

 

[classic33]

Having rejected the concept of an Abrahamic God many years ago, I am what some would call “Pagan” but I don’t like the word, it was an early Christian insult to those living outside the cities.
Remember that the early Christians took over the old Winter festivals for their own ends, much of what we call Christmas is a celebration of the solstice, the decorations, the excessive eating, drinking and so on, if Jesus had never been born-probably in September by the way-most of Yule would be pretty much the same today, and probably just as commercialised, just as everything else from sport to funerals is. So, if you want to celebrate Winter Solstice, just carry on with the normal traditions, just don’t mention Jesus.

Druidic maybe?

 

[Stephenite]

Having rejected the concept of an Abrahamic God many years ago, I am what some would call “Pagan” but I don’t like the word, it was an early Christian insult to those living outside the cities.
Remember that the early Christians took over the old Winter festivals for their own ends, much of what we call Christmas is a celebration of the solstice, the decorations, the excessive eating, drinking and so on, if Jesus had never been born-probably in September by the way-most of Yule would be pretty much the same today, and probably just as commercialised, just as everything else from sport to funerals is. So, if you want to celebrate Winter Solstice, just carry on with the normal traditions, just don’t mention Jesus.

That’s pretty much my outlook.

 

[Hill Wimp]

I like the idea of celebrating the Solstice rather than Christmas...I shall give it some thought....

So do I. Christmas is so pressurised and over rated.

 

[wheresthetorch]

I haven't got a Christmas.