Merry Christmas! Happy Holidays!
In these trying times – trying as ever, what with all the armed conflicts, partisan politics, mass shootings, human pettiness, and whatever craziness of climate change and the COVID virus, which is now part of the illnesses out there: try to find some light in all the darkness of the world.
I tried to be in the right mood for Winter Solstice of 2023, but I didn’t even timely send my Winter Solstice greetings to friends.
A friend of mine sent me a link to a YouTube video (see below) about how people in Hong Kong celebrate Winter Solstice, and I was all: wow, I didn’t even know what “Winter Solstice observation” was called in Cantonese, and I realized that I’m so under-educated about this. It didn’t help that I didn’t/don’t care for glutinous rice balls (what we’d eat for Winter Solstice observation), so my adherence to Chinese traditions hasn’t been very good at all…
(https://youtu.be/NlGZoDZY7CE?feature=shared, or see below:)
But, trying to get into a Christmas spirit? Well, on my part, it’s the usual complicated feelings of not being Christian, of questioning organized religion, and of wondering about anything and everything.
But, a binge of Christmas music might help? Maybe? I tried listening to a lot of Pentatonix (their YouTube link: https://www.youtube.com/@PTXofficial/featured), since I’m a sucker for a cappella…
Or check out this past PBS NewsHour Christmas 2021 presentation of US members singing Feliz Navidad; I like it for being so cheerful and hopeful: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/u-s-service-members-perform-feliz-navidad.
Anyway, best wishes to all for a Merry Christmas and to all a good night. Let’s see if I’ll get to do one more blog post before the end of the year. But, be safe and enjoy the rest of 2023. — ssw15
