Today is the winter solstice in the northern hemisphere. As of tomorrow, the days start getting longer, and the nights shorter.
Having grown up in Venezuela, I had no awareness of the winter and summer solstices. In the tropics, there is no great variation in the length of days throughout the year. We only have a vague awareness that in December, dusk comes about 6:00 pm instead of 6:30 pm.
Over the past few weeks, I read a couple provocative articles on the subject of holiday gift-giving and consumerism.
The first was from Paul Jarvis, who writes a newsletter I read weekly. In his last newsletter, he shared how he doesn't participate in the holiday tradition of gift-giving. Instead, for him and his wife, Christmas Day is a quiet day of resting.
There was something about his perspective that really appealed to me.