Happy Winter Solstice

So, last night we had our annual family solstice celebration. This is something we adopted years ago, mainly because when we think about the spiritual roots of the holidays celebrated this time of year it seems fitting to do something to mark the shortest day of the year, and focus on the happy fact that the days will get longer and brighter from this point forward (not so sure about the "brighter" part here in rainy Vancouver... but anyway). Also we found it freed up December 25th to spend the day with family. Well, now we find ourselves for the first time not living anywhere near enough to visit either Jeff's or my family for Xmas day, and my mum is coming to see us on the 24th so it made sense to hold off on doing the "gift" part until Saturday.

Anyway, this freed us up to do something short and sweet and fun. Jeff came home at a decent hour from work. We made tacos for dinner and a pumpkin pie (because it looks sorta like a sun) for dessert, with freshly whipped cream... and we read a story together by candlelight, a Japanese myth about the sun goddess Amaterasu. Then the kids ran around the house turning on all the lights, to symbolize our wish for the sun to come back - which Calum got a huge kick out of. ("I want to do it again guys!! I want to do it AGAIN!") The kids opened one gift each, and then watched "Annie" which was showing on BBC Kids last night.

I'm on this email group that does a secret pal gift exchange every year and I decided to participate this time. Everyone was assigned a partner, given information about the person's likes and dislikes and we had to mail a gift to that person. Then we all met in an AOL chat room at 9 last night to open our gifts. It was quite fun and made for a lovely end to a nice evening.

So today, my best friend from Toronto is coming to see us for a day or so! She called last night to say she had arrived in Seattle to spend the holidays with her relatives there, and she'll be on a train as we speak on her way up to Vancouver. We'll pick her up from the station, have lunch with Jeff (I've been trying to plan this for a while now, so the kids can see the amazing Christmas tree display in the lobby of the EA main office) and spend the rest of the day just hanging out and talking together. It will be so good to see her! She will head back to Seattle tomorrow evening, and we'll have just enough time to finish getting the house tied up and do the rest of our last minute gift shopping before my mum arrives on Friday.

If anyone reading this has NOT received a copy of our family's holiday newsletter, please email me (vicki@parnell.ca) and I will happily send it to you.