LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Winter Solstice
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In ancient Slavonic cultures, the festival of Kaleda began at Winter Solstice and lasted for ten days. In Russia, this festival was later applied to Christmas Eve but most of the practices were lost after the Soviet Revolution. Each family made a fire in their hearth and invited their personal household Gods to join in the festivities. Children disguise themselves on evenings and nights and as Koledari, visited houses and sang wishes of good luck, like Shchedryk, to hosts. As a reward, they were given little gifts, a tradition called Kolyadovanie, much like the old wassailing or mummers Tradition.[16][17]
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"Winter Solstice" is the kind of ambling, event-free family drama that will either draw audiences in with its gentle, understated power, or quietly bore them out of their skulls. Like its protagonist, a taciturn New Jersey widower named Jim Winters (Anthony La Paglia), the film plays its cards close to its vest. A moderately successful landscape gardener in an idyllic suburb, Jim has two teenage sons, the rebellious Pete (Mark Webber) and the calm but inwardly troubled Gabe (Aaron Stanford). The father sips coffee and broods at the kitchen table; the boys shoot hoops and scuffle in front of the TV. And that’s pretty much it — until a newly arrived neighbor named Molly Ripken (Allison Janney) invites the Winters family over for dinner, upsetting the fragile equilibrium of their bachelor household. The boys, particularly Mr. Webber as Pete, are astonishingly good, and Mr. LaPaglia brings a tender gravity to the shell-shocked Jim.
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Today is winter solstice--the darkest day of the year--and an appropriate time to revisit America's other darkest day of the year, August 29. The National Hurricane Center (NHC) issued its official Tropical Cyclone Report for Katrina on Tuesday. Katrina officially made landfall as a Category 3 hurricane, not a Category 4. Ground-based and aircraft measurements only support 110 knot winds (127 mph) at Katrina's first landfall near Buras, Louisiana. Katrina weakened only slightly before her second landfall, and was still a Category 3 hurricane with 105 knot (121 mph) winds on the Mississippi coast. The NHC report ... stated that the highest sustained winds over metropolitan New Orleans were only of Category 1 or 2 strength, although buildings over 25 stories high may have seen winds a full category higher.
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As John Matthews says: "Capricorn, then, the time of the Winter Solstice, admits the soul into life and then allows it to return to its former god-like state. This was ... the time when the gods became incarnate as mortals, and they too are said to have journeyed through the solstitial gates."
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A central aspect of the winter solstice rites observed by many Native American tribes includes the making and planting of prayer sticks. Prayer sticks are made by everyone in a family for four days before the solstice. On the day named as the solstice, the prayer sticks are plantedóat least one by each personóin small holes dug by the head of the household. Each prayer stick is named for an ancestor or deity.
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Here you will find information on ancient holidays that have been celebrated on or around the Winter Solstice. Some of these ancient holidays, like Christmas, continue to be celebrated, but they have their origin in the ancient world. There are glossary entries for some of the special terms, especially in connection with Christmas.
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Winter Solstice