Christmas Reflections at Winter Solstice

When the sun set this afternoon, it had been one of the shortest stretches of daylight hours in my life – since I moved to this country at age 28, that is. In Caribou, Maine we had about 8 1/2 hours of daylight today. In Uppsala, Sweden, today only had just under six hours of daylight. Sunrise there was at 8:50 am.

I was born at 2:30 in the afternoon on July 18 near Stockholm. That day the sun set around 9:45 pm – 7 hours and 15 minutes of daylight on a day I got a late start.

No wonder we Swedes burn a lot of candles in the winter. Our ancestors did, and they created rituals around them, from the four Advent candles to Saint Lucia with candles in her hair to lots of little live candles in the Christmas tree. That particular ritual now involves electric lights, thank goodness.

Between the darkness and the cold of winter, in Sweden and Maine both, everything seems a little harder to do. I remember when I had manual transmissions in my cars, it was sometimes very difficult to move the stick shift because of the viscosity of the transmission fluid in cold weather.

My own gear shifting is a little sluggish this time of year. I feel like winding down as it gets dark around four in the afternoon. I do get less done around the house and am more likely to just watch a show or movie on my big screen, listen to music, read or write in my library/media room.

I do think back over the year that has passed and think about the year to come. I do try to show up for my Suboxone patients extra meetings to help them get through the holidays. And I always put my thoughts down on this platform every year.

I have wrangled Sir William Osler’s words into a Christmas message for today’s frontline physicians, I have incorporated the Hebrew Mezuzah as a concept for myself and I have written about my shrinking world during the pandemic.

Since my divorce and my move back to Caribou almost five years ago, I have found new rhythms and new traditions for Christmas and New Years, but this year looks like it will be different because of the work schedules of everyone involved. A little bit like the pandemic, my world may seem smaller for a while. But there will be other times to get together as a large extended family.

This year I am making plans for some more ambitious home improvement projects I’ve been thinking about ever since I moved back to my little farm. I have to finish some remaining trim work in my library and more than one person has told me I should dust off my guitar (literally) and make music again.

I guess one conclusion here is that things don’t always turn out exactly as we have planned. That’s certainly no news to me. But that doesn’t mean we can’t do something enjoyable and meaningful no matter where we are, no matter who is missing in that particular moment and no matter what new things we might end up doing instead of what we did last year.