First light can be a rather ambiguous situation if its cloudy, especially if it's snowing. Luckily we have resources online to tell us, to the minute, when the sun will rise. I use local flight info in case I can't tell when the sun is up--pilots have to know exactly when first light appears, when the sun actually rises, and all that. On the shortest day of the year, pilots who aren't permitted to fly at night will be severely curtailed. I guess they'll have to stay home and drink hot chocolate.
Friends are welcome to come over. We have both modern and traditional goodies on Yule.
Why Yule instead of Christmas? I left the Catholic faith a long time ago. Even as sanitized and de-Christianized as many Americans make it, it's still a Christian holiday. I both respect my Christian friends, and my decision, too much to celebrate a neutered version of what was in turn a neutered (and then put in funny clothes) version of a pagan holiday.
Much of what informs my spiritual practices comes from what I've learned about the cycles of day and night, life and death, and the seasons. Celebrating the solstice fits with that. We do the whole shebang--open gifts, call friends, and sometimes I even get holiday cards out on time (not this year, though!) It's the yay, the sunshine is coming back party, rather than the virgin birth thing or the B&E saint thing for us. Whatever your faith, I hope December 21st is a good day for you, and that you have a peaceful and hopeful night. Come the first light of December 22nd, the days will get longer and will eventually snowball (ha ha) into spring here in the northern hemisphere on our gorgeous, jewel-like planet surrounded by the stars of our home, the Milky Way Galaxy.
