Cold Weather Thoughts

The December Newsletter is now up at our site. We've used the Yule article (Mother Wit for Yule) by request. I wrote that one a long time ago. I'm glad that people still like it.

One of my favorite links in this edition is an article on Obsidian written by a Stephanie at the Ozark Rock Exchange. I went to their on-line store a while back and noted some presents to buy from Yule. I don't do a lot of Yule shopping (see article as to why) but when I do, I like to support Pagan and/or ethical vendors.

It's tricky to stitch of these links into a readable format. Labrys did a good job here, as did Snakemoon before her.

Speaking of our folks, I spoke to a Senior Staff member on the phone yesterday who is now making the rounds of parties in the company of a charming Irishman. I've known her for over a decade and I'd have to say that she is even more beautiful in her 50's than she was in her 40's. Fulfillment will do that for a woman.

We had a good chat on what we like and don't like about holiday parties. We both prefer to be around people who drink like grownups. She drinks little and I don't drink at all, so it's not fun for us to be in a room when everyone else is three sheets to the wind. In wine drinking countries, it's considered to be very bad form to be drunk in public. My ancestors didn't have a wine culture like that. Countries like England, Scotland and Germany that could once grow wine had to stop growing grapes in the 12th century due to the radical changes in weather caused by the Little Ice Age and so they drank hard liquor and beer instead. The immigrants who came over to America in the early days came mostly from these countries and they brought their hard drinking ways with them. Sadly, they did not bring the Pub Culture, as well (except perhaps to Boston and New York). Pubs tend to be family friendly places, unlike the bars in the U.S. (It depends on the kind of pub, of course, but I prefer them to bars, overall). I have a Scottish friend who stopped drinking and smoking when she moved to California. She now has two children and her family is moving back to Glasgow to be near their kin. While she loves her home town, she dreads going back into a hard drinking, smoke filled, fry everything of culture.

Ironically, the Little Ice Age is something we may see again in my lifetime, and we may well bring it upon ourselves.

What goes around, comes around.

Sia