Northern Hemisphere folks. :)

Giant yule goat

http://www.merjuligavle.se/English/VISIT-GAVLE/THE-CHRISTMAS-GOAT/Web-cam/

Well we celebrated here with a big old blizzard - almost 2 feet of snow! 

Happy Winter solstice InteriorCastle!

The darkness has peaked, and from December 21 on the sun increases its light!

I like that the light starts to grow from this point forward. Nice metaphor for other things.

Yeah, but I love those dark nights drawing in.  Doesn't last long enough IMO.  Happy Solstice!

Happy Solstice everyone!  Any suggestions on some simple, yet effective, ways to spiritually observe the event?

Happy Solstice!

daisynymph, I usually go to the Observatory near my house and look at the moon and stars and notice where they are in the sky and what's going on.  

I'm also a big fan of celebrating pagan holidays in pagan ways *grin*  You know, frolicking and cavorting and merriment. If you want to go this direction, try this article for ideas.  For some more sedate celebrations, maybe the about.com site is a better starting point.

Celebrating pagan holidays sounds GREAT to me Shannon!   Thank you for the suggestions.  My Sister-in-Law is looking for a good simple cleansing ritual and I found one for the Yule on that site.  Good stuff, thanks again!

I can't speak for anyone else, but while I'm here I plan to LIVE.  From Thoreau:

I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life...to put rout all that was not life; and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived..."

I put frolicking and cavorting in that category 

So did we, Dorothy!

I live a half hour away from the Jersey Shore, and we also got smacked with 2 feet of snow.

Other people are going to be celebrating this solstice by mad scrambling, due to "Super Saturday" being snowed out.

Guess jolly Jupiter couldn't resist dumping a big old nor'easter as a gift to the East Coast as the Sun was leaving his sign.    Now we're cleaning up the mess...hi, Old Man Saturn!

Happy Solstice!

I love this day *especially* because starting tomorrow we get an extra 2 minutes of daylight per day. That means it gets lighter again as of tomorrow. yippee!:) 

Oh Shannon, I LOVE that quote!  I'm going to put it on my wall and have it as my 2010 mantra