December 25, 2025. Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays

"Merry Christmas, everyone!

May these holy days wrap you in love, quiet peace, gentle hope, small joys, kindness, laughter, music, and moments of simple magic.

May abundance find you in ways both seen and unseen, and may compassion guide your days and nights.

Wishing you a tender Christmas and peaceful holidays.

May love and grace be the source behind every choice you make."

Rivers in the Ocean

Happy Holidays. My wish for everyone is that you have enough, and may today be full of kindness.

December 24, 2025. Merry Christmas Eve

Arthur Rackham 1937 'Twas the Night Before Christmas

I baked a ham, made my old fashioned traditional fudge, and made some crockpot chocolate peanut candy.  I will make some mashed potatoes, green beans, and maybe some deviled eggs to have with the ham on Friday or Saturday.  I have some Food City bakery rolls to go with that luscious food.  I would have it tomorrow but I have been invited to a neighbor's house for Christmas dinner, and I will get to hang out with my love, Cooper, the long-haired dachshund.  I will call my siblings sometime tomorrow to wish them Christmas greetings.  I hope that all of you have a wonderful Christmas/Holiday Season.

December 22, 2025. Monday. Old Fashioned Fudge

 Got two pots of old fashioned fudge cooked, and it actually 'set up'.  Had to do it today as they are calling for more humidity every day after today, and if there's too much humidity, the fudge won't 'set up'.  My nephew calls it dusty fudge due to the top getting all crumbly (if it sets up hard enough) when it is cut.  :)

December 21, 2025 Sunday. Winter Solstice. First Day of Winter. The Beginning of the Returning of the Light

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Naturalist's Guide: The Winter Solstice begins on Sunday, December 21, 2025, at 10:03 AM EST—marking the first official day of Winter. During this time, the North Pole is tilted the farthest from the Sun. Sunday will be the shortest day and longest night of the year in the Northern Hemisphere.

Midwives of the Soul 

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The winter solstice time is no longer celebrated as it once was, with the understanding that this is a period of descent and rest, of going within our homes, within ourselves and taking in all that we have been through, all that has passed in this full year which is coming to a close... like nature and the animal kingdom around us, this time of hibernation is so necessary for our tired limbs, our burdened minds.

Our modern culture teaches avoidance at a max at this time; alcohol, lights, shopping, overworking, overspending, comfort food and consumerism.

And yet the natural tug to go inwards as nearly all creatures are doing is strong and the weather so bitter that people are left feeling that winter is hard, because for those of us without burning fires and big festive families, it can be lonely and isolating.

Whereas in actual fact winter is kind, she points us in her quiet soft way towards our inner self, towards this annual time of peace and reflection, embracing the darkness and forgiving, accepting and loving, embracing goodbye to the past year.

"Winter takes away the distractions, the buzz, and presents us with the perfect time to rest and withdraw into a womb like love, bringing fire & light to our hearth".

.. and then, just around the corner the new year will begin again, and like a seed planted deep in the earth, we will all rise with renewed energy once again to dance in the sunlight.

Life is a gift a Happy winter to you all...

~ Bridget Anna McNeil

Brigit Anna McNeill

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Dark Of Winter  · Nox Arcana ·

Winter Solstice

This is the longest night of the year, the great turning when the sun pauses at the edge of return and the earth leans fully into darkness.

Here, stories thicken. The ground holds its breath and listens. Frost sketches its temporary prayers along the edges of leaves and windows, and the stars feel nearer, as though they have leaned closer just to hear us breathe.

This winter night is not the absence of life but its inward gathering. Sap is held deep in root and heartwood, the sweetness of the year kept safe against the cold. Seeds lie in the dark, dense with memory and potential, carrying whole landscapes within them. Beneath the soil, unseen lives continue their quiet tending, keeping the future warm in the deepest dark.

So too in us. Our bodies remember this season, even when our minds forget. In the long night, blood and bone draw inward, breath thickens, marrow listens, and something in us trusts that not all growth needs light to begin.

The sun will turn because it always has. The light will return slowly, faithfully, by small degrees that ask for patience rather than force.

May this solstice meet you gently, reminding you that even in the deepest dark, the earth continues its quiet work.

The future is already breathing.

————-

WORDS Brigit Anna McNeill

ART Tijana Lukovic