#Hashbrowns

The Romans turned their lives upside down, with lords becoming slaves and vice versa. There was food and drink and song, and at the end of the festivities, everyone felt renewed for the coming year.

The Germans marked Midwinter with a feast; taking their fill of food and drink and song, and at the end of the festivities, everyone felt renewed, as they knew spring approached.

The Biblical story of Jesus is most likely a temporal transplant, celebrated in the wrong season for his actual birth, but giving a fine excuse to gather and enjoy food, drink and song.

We Jews celebrate a time we killed a bunch of Greeks for bossing us around (as good a reason as any) with, you might have guessed, food, drink and song.

When the wind whips the bones, and the nights swell past their customary borders, life becomes bitter. But humans are social animals, and we do so love to share our misery. So we drink and laugh and eat and sing and enjoy the company of others, because that’s the true meaning of any of the Solstice Holidays: to share our winter misery to lessen it, and to enjoy time with our loved ones. The story of Jesus in the manger or Amaterasu in the cave or Odin driving at the head of a furious legion of undead warriors on a Wild Hunt or just a bunch of Jewish Terrorists kicking the shit out of some foreigners are the instance of the holiday, not the substance.

Merry Midwinter, friends. Whatever your excuse, I’ll gladly grant you my brandy, tea, sweetbreads and company.

Just grant us peace.