Winter Solstice Celebrations

Are you doing anything special for the Winter Solstice? besides your religious or cultural holidays you usually celebrate? We celebrate Christmas and Kwanza in my household (although for Kwanza we usually condense it into one day, but this year we will do all seven). I usually do something for the Spring Equinox like throw a party because I hate winter and adore the ending of it.

This year I want to do something to mark the winter solstice. The kids and I have been reading up on it and my youngest, who has a belief in god, is fascinated by the historical scientific and religious aspect of it, including:

ANCIENT BRAZIL: Brazilian archeologists have found an assembly of 127 granite blocks arranged equidistant from each other. They apparently form an ancient astronomical observatory. One of the stones marked the position of the sun at the time of the winter solstice and were probably used in religious rituals. 20

ANCIENT EGYPT: The god-man/savior Osiris died and was entombed on DEC-21. "At midnight, the priests emerged from an inner shrine crying 'The Virgin has brought forth! The light is waxing" and showing the image of a baby to the worshipers." 1

ANCIENT GREECE: The winter solstice ritual was called Lenaea, the Festival of the Wild Women. In very ancient times, a man representing the harvest god Dionysos was torn to pieces and eaten by a gang of women on this day. Later in the ritual, Dionysos would be reborn as a baby. By classical times, the human sacrifice had been replaced by the killing of a goat. The women's role had changed to that of funeral mourners and observers of the birth.

ANCIENT ROME: Saturnalia began as a feast day for Saturn on DEC-17 and of Ops (DEC-19). About 50 BCE, both were later converted into two day celebrations. During the Empire, the festivals were combined to cover a full week: DEC-17 to 23.
http://www.religioustolerance.org/winter_solstice.htm

This year the Solstice is on December 22nd. I suspect in one of my previous visits to this planet I was a pagan of some sorts, because every year towrds the end of December I want to light a big bonfire outside and fling myself around it naked as a jaybird. ahem. Now we won't be doing that, but I would like to do something outside if it weren't so cold. t-bop wants to read one of his poems about god and talk about the religious aspect, s-bop wants to talk about the science aspect, i-bop wants to talk about the history. I think on the 22nd we'll have a special dinner and light candles and do all 3 things.