Spending Christmas by yourself can be a very lonely, sad time, or it can be an adventure. I should know because I spent many Christmas holidays alone after my divorce many years ago. The first Christmas was spent crying a lot while I opened presents from my grown-up kids, who had gone to another state with their dad to work.

Mistletoe = kissing. That's how I associate the parasitic plant that is oftentimes hung above a doorway during the holidays. But what is the true history of it? Research told me that there were several theories about how mistletoe became associated with kissing.

“We take the solstice very seriously,” Matthew began, “It is a very important night. As you probably know, the term ‘solstice’ is derived from the Latin words for sun, which is sol, and sistere, which means ‘to make stand’, since that is when the axis of the earth seems to pause its shift for moving in the other direction. This pause is the start for bringing on a new year of movement and growth…a new solar cycle.”