Anticipation!

It’s Christmas Eve-Eve. I love this date. I love Christmas Eve too, almost more than Christmas. I love the anticipation. Anticipation is a wonderful feeling if it is accompanied by certainty. We know Christmas will come. We are sure.
Another day of anticipation is (or was, I let it slip by) the Winter Solstice on the twenty-first.

It’s not that I see anything mystic or magical about this date – I am a Christian—but after the twenty-first, the days start getting longer. I love the sunshine, and every day we’ll be getting more of it! That is cause for celebration.
I think of the ancients and how they observed this day. Notice I don’t use the word celebrate. It was no celebration for the unlucky humans who would be sacrificed to appease the sun. I don’t approve of human sacrifice, mind you, but I understand their desperation. Just think. I know the sun will come back. They hoped it would come back, and if the tribe lost a virgin or two--

Imagine living in Scotland or England or Ireland on an ancient December twenty-first (you wouldn’t call it December twenty-first, of course). Those countries are foggy all year round. Add the winter darkness and the cold—-of course they wanted the sun to come back; they would die otherwise. I’m reminded of a book I read: A World Lit Only By Fire by William Manchester. Isn’t that title evocative? Until Thomas Edison’s light bulb, the whole world was lit only by fire. Much of the world still is.
For the ancients the solstice was about terror; but for us, it’s all about anticipation: spring will come; no sacrifices required- thank God.