Two Solstices

I’ve been remiss in my posting lately, the hustle and bustle of the season and all. But I’ve saved up some stories.

Anyone who has talked to me this time of year knows that I love Christmas. And I love Solstice. It’s an occupational hazard of being a Unitarian. I planned my vacation home to make sure that I would be there for the Winter Solstice celebration at FUS (my home church). But before I left, Brian and I had the chance to celebrate Solstice at UUAA, my Ann Arbor church. I was stoked. Two solstices! That’s like being told that Christmas will come three times or Hanukah was going to last for 20 nights! Right?

Not quite. After hearing all my tales of FUS solstice, our Texas friends wanted to come with to experience UUAA solstice. I prepared our dishes for the potluck, packed up the hot chocolate and peppermint schnapps and set off towards awesomeness. First let down: the way the potluck works in Ann Arbor is that everyone not only brings their own dish to share, you also bring your own DISHES, as in limited plates and cutlery. I happily began to eat my meal off the lid of a Tupperware container, when it was announced that food was limited, so everyone should take small-ish portions, or not come for seconds at all. I was bummed, but told myself that things would still pick up. And then in walked Drunk Santa.

Now, I’ve come to associate Solstice with the eschewing of Christmas glamour, leaving behind our materialism and capitalism in a celebration of older traditions and simpler joys. Drunk Santa has no place at such an event.

He wished us all a Merry Solstice as he bumped into the walls, interrupted several announcements with announcements of his own, and offered each little child who refused to sit on his lap a coffee maker. I was happy to see him leave and the caroling begin.

Unfortunately, in Ann Arbor, caroling music is accompanied not by a piano, but instead with drums and an out of tune trombone. After the trombonist played “Frosty the Snow Man” so poorly that the carolers couldn’t follow the tune anymore, we left.

But solstice at FUS was everything I had hoped it would be, even without my big sister there. We ate until we were stuffed, we sang our solstice songs (including the solar power carol), listened to the choir and the choral readers and watched a mummers play that starred Old Man Winter, a jester, a single mom, a doctor and gay robin hood. We rounded out the night singing the twelve nights of solstice and folk dancing.

I think solstice is something that should perhaps only come once a year.