For those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, the last week of the year is one of the darkest.  New Year's Day follows quickly on the heels of the winter solstice.  In fact, the sun sets at about 4:25 here in the Chicago area in the week between Christmas and December 31st. It's easy to want to crawl under the covers and just wait for spring.  That's especially true in a year like the one we've just had.  Most of us didn't realize that 2021 would be a long, drawn-out extension of 2020. At the same time, though, I'm reminded of the traditional Taoist yin/yang symbol.  There's a small dot of white in the largest part of the black side - … [Read more...]

How do you use the last week of the year to be more productive, when the rest of the year has been anything but normal? This is the 5th-annual installment in a series where I look at how we can more effectively use the last week of the year.  In normal times, that last week is a chance to do things a little differently.  To take stock and make big plans. But when coming to the end of a year like 2020, how can you put a bow on it and move to the next?  There are a lot of adjectives that have been floating around for the times we're in (I've adopted "wack" or "wack-a-doo" as my go-to choices).  But no matter what you call it, individually … [Read more...]

One of the things I love about the internet is that you can answer any random question you have with just a few keystrokes. And this year I wanted to learn what Yule was...as in the Yule log and Yuletide and all of the other references that pop up in Christmas songs. It turns out that it was a 12-day festival that started right after the winter solstice in German and Nordic countries when they were still pagan.  A lot of their celebrations morphed into our current holiday traditions. Twelve days of celebrating with some food, music, and liquid cheer makes a lot of sense when it's cold and dark all of the time. (Here in Chicago, the … [Read more...]