Well, thanks to the US Naval Observatory, we know that the Winter Solstice officialy hit at Dec 22, 01:14 Universal Time, which means Dec 21, 17:14 PST. So, this evening at 5:14 was officially the "low point," which means it's all uphil from here. Tonight will be the longest night of the year, and, as I understand it, using Universal time, Dec 22nd will be the shortest Day of the year (again, the "Universal Day" is 8 hours ahead of our "day," so things are kind of skewed in the translation. I'm not sure if the 21st or 22nd, in the Pacific Standard Time frame of reference is officially the "shortest" -- as defined by least sunlight -- day of the year, but they can only be seconds apart.)

So, I forgot to "mark" the official moment, and I'm kind of disappointed, but I think I wes en route from my house to the 'Rents for dinner, so there's not much I couldv'e done. I'm making up for it by enjoying a Ambig Dis Brewery X-mas Spiced Ale right now.

So, here is where I go on my rant about how our "Christmas" celebrations are almost entirely based on so-called "pagan" (or pre-Christian, or non-Christian) Solstice Celebrations, particularly the Scandanavian Yule festivities. In fact, "Christ's Mass", which was loosely observed at any time between Janurary and April for years, was moved by Rome in about 350 AD to coincide with pre-existing solstice observances. In other words, Christ wasn't born on the night of the 24th, it's just a date that was chosen by the Holy Roman Empire in order to move in on a good thing that was already going on.

I guess the point of all this, is that you don't have to be the least bit Christian to fully celebrate Christmas, name aside (and let's not get bogged down in semantics at this point). Basically, don't go to church, and you are celebrating the Yule, Saturnalia, or whatever you want it to be. It is an all-encompassing observance and celebration nearly ubiquitous to Northern Hemisphere cultures, regardless of religion. And, since "religion" before the Judeo-Christian thing really picked up steam was based on celestial and seasonal cycles, as was the calendar (the lunar calendar has 13 months in a year, and, of course, 13 is an unlcky number, so that went right out!), we're really talking about people who were a lot more "in touch" with the natural world, as compared to the Romans, who after adopting Christianity, decided to make everything arbitrary. I mean, why the fuck does the New Year begn on Janurary 1st? What the fuck is that? The New Years should start with the rebirth of the sun, on December 21st. Of course, if the calendar was actually based on the this, it wouldn't be "December 21st," but rather the 1st of whatever the first month of the year would be called. But I'm rambling.

So, If I had my druthers, we'd be talking about a celebration that reached it's peak on the Solstice, so "Christmas" as we know it would be on Dec 21st, and you'd have a few days of partying leading up to it, and then a few days after it, to observe the start of a new year.

So there you go.