Happy Winter Solstice!

Well, friends, it's the shortest day of the year, and that can only mean one thing: Light is returning! May your days absolutely be merry and bright, and thank you all for the kindness and friendship you've brought into my life. Happy Winter Solstice, Merry Christmas, Joyful Hanukkah, Spectacular Kwanzaa, Magnificent New Year... and may every OTHER day be amazingly wonderful, too! 

And so the shortest day came, and the year died

And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world 

Came people singing, dancing, 

To drive the dark away. 

They lighted candles in the winter trees; 

They hung their homes with evergreen; 

They burned beseeching fires all night long 

To keep the year alive. 

And when the new year's sunshine blazed awake 

They shouted, reveling. 

Through all the frosty ages you can hear them 

Echoing behind us - listen! 

All the long echoes, sing the same delight, 

This Shortest Day, 

As promise wakens in the sleeping land: 

They carol, feast, give thanks, 

And dearly love their friends, 

And hope for peace. 

And now so do we, here, now, 

This year and every year. 

Welcome Yule! 

--"The Shortest Day," written by Susan Cooper for The Christmas Revels