As you are planning your holiday traditions this year, consider celebrating the winter solstice on December 21. Hold on, you may be thinking. The last thing I need is another event! In fact, in the midst of a hectic and often consumer-focused holiday season, honoring the solstice can be a relaxing and spiritual time for your family. As the longest night of the year, winter solstice represents a return of the light as the days begin to get longer and in many cultures is seen as a time of rebirth.

I spoke with some friends who create a special ritual every year for the solstice. The Perlingieri family shared with me how they mark this special evening and teach their children to notice and honor the seasonal changes of the Earth.

First they bring a live tree or bush into their home and lovingly decorate it with lights. After tending it well in the home, they later plant it. They also light candles in the room to represent the return to light. For their ritual, they have gathered rosemary, holly, bay leaves, ivy, apples, walnuts, and evergreen boughs. These are laid out under the tree during their solstice ritual.

The rosemary and bay leaves are bound together, one bundle for each member of the family. Rosemary is for remembrance; each person shares their favorite highlights of the year and then places the bundle under the tree. The bay leaves cleanse the unsettling events of the past year.

The energy of holly is masculine, with a fiery and protective force, while Ivy represents the feminine aspects of intuition and emotions. They honor these opposite but complimentary natures and recognize that while they can at times seem at odds, they are both equally important to the equilibrium of their family.

Then they each place an apple, symbolizing love, under the tree and either proclaim out loud or silently their love for one another. The walnuts are wishes for the coming year. These can be spoken aloud or held as silent intentions and placed under the tree.

The evergreen boughs are placed all around the tree as a symbol of resilience and immortality - impervious to the cold and darkness. As the season of night is ending, this heralds the return of the light!

To complete their ritual, they stand in a circle, hold hands and chant “ohm” at the moon, respecting its darkness, but inviting the sun to return again.

When I asked what they will do different this year, they shared that they look forward to keeping the fire burning all night in their new wood stove for their first Yule log. (The origins of the Yule log are connected with the custom of keeping a fire burning all night throughout the night linking the two shortest days of the year.)

Earth-centered celebrations to mark seasonal changes have been practiced by many cultures all over the world for many millennia. You can adapt this or another ritual to fit your own family’s philosophy and include prayers or blessings that reflect your religious practices. You can also make it as complex or as simple as you'd like it to be.

What does your family do for winter solstice, or what would you like to do? Share your ideas by leaving a comment!

During the holiday season, many of us talk to our kids about how important it is to feel grateful for all the blessings in our lives. Sure, our lives are not perfect and we have very valid challenges and concerns. This year when so many are feeling the crunch of a struggling economy, it is even more important to turn our attention to a deep appreciation for what we do have.

What is so powerful about gratitude?

Gratitude attracts abundance. Okay, I know the "law of attraction" can seem hokey and a little too “new age” for some of us. But when it comes to gratitude, this is just simple cause and effect. When you are feeling grateful for what you do have, you tend to focus on the abundance in your life: your loving relationships, your health, your home, whatever really counts for you. And when you focus on these things, you just feel good. That feeling of goodness causes you to act differently than if you were focused on scarcity, challenges or all the things you don’t have. And when you are feeling blessed and abundant, you tend to take constructive, creative action and experience more positive results.

Gratitude inspires giving. When you appreciate the resources that you have, you tend to want to give more of your money, time and energy to others. This is a wonderful cycle because the more you give, the more you tend to feel grateful. Think about a time in your life when you volunteered for a cause that you a really believed in or gave funds towards helping someone in need. Didn’t that just inspire you to be more open and loving? And I bet in the end, you received as much as you gave!

Gratitude keeps you connected to your values. It is difficult to feel sorry for yourself, focus on the inconsequential things or act selfishly when you are feeling grateful. Gratitude reminds you what is important in your life - and challenges you to live from your values.

So, this year, as you gather with family and beloved friends, take some time to deeply reflect on your own sense of gratitude and be the person who inspires this kind of thinking in others.

Here are some questions for reflection and sharing:

• What was the best part of your day?


• When something wonderful happens, who is the first person you want to tell?


• What have you experienced in your life that you never thought was possible?


• What makes you most hopeful?


• When you are going through a tough time, who or what inspires you?

We make tamales almost every year around Thanksgiving, usually the day after. We make several dozen and freeze them to eat over the next few months. They make a wonderful, quick treat for dinners and are a fun family tradition, too - many Hispanic families make them for Christmas or the New Year, but since we don't do turkeys anyway we thought Thanksgiving would be a fun time to do it.

I tweeted about making vegetarian tamales and got a lot of requests for the recipe, so I'm posting the recipe here. We'll do a follow-up post with pictures after we make them this weekend!

We use the book Tamales 101: A Beginner's Guide to Making Traditional Tamales by Alice Guadalupe Tapp as our tamale Bible. It's full of diagrams of different ways to fold tamales, recipes for vegan, vegetarian and even omnivorous recipes, recipes for sauces to dress your tamales, and hints on storing, freezing, reheating and even shipping tamales. We highly recommend having this book on your kitchen counter when you start your tamale-making adventures, and it's where I got the recipes below.

We tried making tamales by using the dried masa our first year but the tamales came out dry and it was hard to work with the dough so since then we've starting using a fresh, unprepared masa. You should be able to pick this up in a Mexican grocery, if you live in a place that has one, or in a regular grocery store if your community has a large Hispanic population.

Start your tamale-making day (yes, reserve a day and make it a family affair) by soaking your corn husks in hot water for an hour or so and then rinse the grit and dirt from them.

Vegetarian Masa
1.5 cups butter
6 tablespoons margarine
5 pounds fresh masa
2-3 cups vegetable stock
2 tablespoons salt

(To make a vegan masa, substitute 2 cups of chilled margarine or olive oil for the 1.5 cups butter and 6 tablespoons margarine, decrease the salt to 1.5 teaspoons and add 1 tablespoon of mushroom powder. The olive oil should be measured out and placed in the freezer overnight. Use directly out of the freezer.)

This works best with a stand mixer. Whip the butter and margarine on high until light then on low or medium alternately add fresh masa and approximately 2 cups of the stock and the salt. Beat until fully combined then whip on high for an additional 3-5 minutes until the masa resembles spackle (add stock a little at the time until this consistancy is acheived). To test if the masa is ready to use, it will float when a 1/2 teaspoon is dropped into a cup of cold water. (Continue beating if masa does not float.) Makes about five dozen tamales.

Our favorite filling is a (26 oz) can of pickled jalapenos and carrots and two pounds of grated cheese (Jack or Cheddar). Prepare the jalapenos by draining the can and cutting off the stems of the jalapenos. Mince the jalapenos and carrots. Makes about four dozen tamales.

The eagle-eyed among you may notice that you have made more prepared masa than you have filling for. We'll leave that up to you - the masa recipe is what it is because it is sold in 5 or 10-pound bags.

To assemble tamales:

Spread approximately 1/3 to 1/2 cup of masa along the fat part of the corn husk making sure that you're on the smooth side of the husk so the masa doesn't stick to the ridges. Put 1 tablespoon jalapenos mix and 2 tablespoons of cheese in the center of the masa. Fold both sides in then either tie both ends or fold the bottom end up and tie in the center.

To steam the tamales:

Arrange the finished tamales in a tamale pot (or a steamer basket in an eight-quart pot) vertically and add about four inches of water and a quarter to the bottom of the part.

The quarter will clink around while the water is boiling, and if you suddenly hear silence then run, don't walk to add water to the bottom of your pot so you don't scorch your pot. Because it's very, very hard to get clean if you scorch your pot. (I suspect. I've never run out of water while steaming my tamales. Nope. Never.)

Cover the tops of the tamales with a wet dishcloth or leftover corn husks. Bring water to a rolling boil on high, then decrease to medium-high and cover with a lid to steam for approximately 1 hour. Tamales are done when the husk is easily removed from the tamale and the tamale is firm to the touch. Careful of the steam when you are removing your tamales!

Enjoy immediately with mole, enchilada sauce, sour cream, salsa, or whatever else you want to put on them, or cool and freeze for a quick microwaveable meal. These things make the most enviable work lunches you have ever been a party to. Try it and you'll see.