{"id":304,"date":"2007-12-24T10:17:20","date_gmt":"2007-12-24T14:17:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.summerofjim.com\/2007\/12\/24\/its-not-just-about-christmas-channukah-kwanzaa\/"},"modified":"2007-12-24T10:17:20","modified_gmt":"2007-12-24T14:17:20","slug":"its-not-just-about-christmas-channukah-kwanzaa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/?p=304","title":{"rendered":"It&#8217;s not just about Christmas, Channukah &#038; Kwanzaa"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Winter Festivals have been going on for a long, long time.\u00a0 Well before there were organized religions, our human ancestors would celebrate the solstice in <em>mid-summer <\/em>and <em>mid-winter&#8230; <\/em>those days of greatest light and greatest darkness. <\/p>\n<p>Tomorrow, in the Northern Hemisphere we celebrate the Winter Solstice&#8230; and I have been searching for an appropriate way to mark this great occasion (other than\u00a0by drinking too much bourbon).\u00a0 I have finally found a tradition I can get behind&#8230; it&#8217;s noted below &#8212; <em>I&#8217;m not making this up.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The Saami, indigenous people of\u00a0Finland, Sweden and Norway, worship <strong>Beiwe<\/strong>, the sun-goddess of fertility and sanity. She travels through the sky in a structure made of reindeer bones with her daughter, <strong>Beiwe-Neia<\/strong>, to herald back the greenery on which the reindeer feed. On the <u>winter solstice<\/u>, her worshipers sacrifice white female animals, and with the meat, thread and sticks, bend into rings with ribbons. They also cover their doorposts with butter so Beiwe can eat it and begin her journey once again.<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s it&#8230; I&#8217;m moving to Finland.\u00a0 But if Beiwe and her daughter wear those hats with the horns and metal brassieres, I&#8217;m coming back.<\/p>\n<p><em>HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Winter Festivals have been going on for a long, long time.\u00a0 Well before there were organized religions, our human ancestors would celebrate the solstice in mid-summer and mid-winter&#8230; those days of greatest light and greatest darkness. Tomorrow, in the Northern &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/?p=304\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=304"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}