VOCABULARY PREVIEW

The last months of the year bring winter, and winter brings cold and darkness. The days are short and the nights are long and chilly.

BUT – we are lucky that winter also brings holidays for almost everyone! Diwali, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, Christmas, and winter solstice celebrations all bring warm cheer and shared joy. These holidays have different meanings for different cultures, but they all share one thing:

LIGHT!

The winter holidays begin with Diwali, celebrated by Hindus the world over, usually in November. It is a five-day-long party. A festival of lights and happiness, it falls on the darkest night of the year in the Hindu month of Kartik.

People celebrate Diwali by lighting their homes and streets with candles, dressing up in new clothes, exchanging gifts, and eating traditional food.

Source: https://blog.asaptickets.com/

Christmas comes with candles, lights, and glittering tinsel. A shining star is an important part of any Christmas story. In America, people decorate their homes with lights, inside and out. Some of the lighting displays are lavish! Dyker Heights, a neighborhood in Brooklyn, is well-known for its Christmas lights. Map to Dyker Heights: https://maps.app.goo.gl/nKRPh96XcMsy7nAg6 Go take a look!

Sources: https://mommypoppins.com/ and https://www.viator.com/

Kwanzaa has a tradition of lighting the kinara, a candleholder for 7 candles. One is lit each night for a week, and the different colors of the candles signify Africa and its peoples’ struggles and hopes. “Kinara” means “candleholder” in Swahili.

Source: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/12/18/kwanzaa-2020-when-and-how-black-families-celebrate-virtually/6540958002/

Hannukah celebrations include the lighting of a menorah, an eight-branched candleholder. Jews light Hannukah candles to remember victory in ancient battles, and the miracles that happened in those times.

Finally, the actual solstice, which takes place on December 21 in the Northern Hemisphere, has been a special time of celebration since the Stone Age. This was a significant and dramatic moment in the year for many cultures. Because it was the darkest night of all, there are monuments and traditions that revolve around bringing light into this darkness.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_solstice

No matter how you celebrate the solstice, use it as a way to replace winter doldrums with a sense of renewal. The winter solstice may signify the day the sun rises lowest in the sky, but it’s also the day before we start growing closer to days of more light.

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