Happy NODWISH™

Yes, it’s the time of year when the Sun dies and must be re-born through an elaborate ceremony that involves some form or type of sacrifice, such as finding gifts for people you can’t stand and smiling brightly as you receive yet another gift based on an urban legend that you actually like truly stomach-wrenching color combinations.

Of course there was a time when the Solstice sacrifices were more visceral and the evergreen was covered in things that pleased only ravens and such, but we have put all that behind us by opting for the possibility of electrocuting one another and causing chaos on the power grid.

What a brilliant idea: moving a large supply of pre-kindling soaked with highly flammable resins into your house, loading it down with petrochemical-based ornaments, lacing it with heat-producing electrical devices, and surrounding the base with cardboard boxes and tissue paper. You just can’t have a traditional celebration without a proto-bonfire in your living room.

I do think that followers of Mithras might want to curtail their typical birthday service in light of Mad-Cow Disease, but global warming will certainly make the services in the oak wood in traditional druidic robes more comfortable.

When you put up your stocking on the mantel and put out the turnips for Gouger, Rooter, Tusker, and Snouter as well as the pork pie and sherry for the Hogfather, you can rest assured the Sun will come up, because it just slipped around back to return the lager it rented.

Enjoy! You have nothing to fear, except that sniveling little creep with the camera/phone at the office party or the eggnog that was put out rather early causing you to suspect that the bits on top aren’t nutmeg. [The pictures probably won’t appear on the ‘Net and the brandy will surely take care of the salmonella.]

A Calendar of Coming Events

December 1^st

First Sunday of Advent
Gävlebocken is inaugurated.
Last day to make a Christmas Pudding.

December 6^th

Feast of Saint Nicholas

December 13^th

Feast of St. Lucia

December 21^st

Winter Solstice [10:19PM Central Standard Time]
HogsWatch

December 22^nd

First day of Hanukkah [begins at sundown which is the night of the 25^th of Kislev on Jewish calendars]

December 23^rd

Festivus

December 25^th

Christmas
Birth of Mithras

December 26^th

Boxing Day
Feast of Saint Stephan
First day of Kwanzaa

January 5^th

Twelfth Night

January 6^th

Feast of the Epiphany
Día de los Reyes

January 7^th

Orthodox Christmas

[When the Julian solar calendar replaced the old lunar calendar the Winter Solstice was December 25^th. When Pope Gregory corrected the calendar he only corrected it by 10 days and not the full two weeks it was out of synch with the sun, so the date of the Solstice is now the 21^st. Most Orthodox Churches continue to use the Julian calendar which is why their Christmas is on January 7^th.]

Oh, this is the explanation of NODWISH coined by Mercury X23