CHRISTMAS: THE FIRST DAY OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SPRING

What I learned from Alice Walker -- that Christmas was tied to solstice to mark Jesus Christ's birth as rebirth. But that solstice is really the day when the sun turns back from the farthest it has gone -- that the sun re-turns. Thus, solstice is the first day when Spring becomes possible, and that it was long celebrated as such even before the date was linked to coincide with Christian tradition.

Christmas, then, as the hope for Spring...due to the return of the sun, the return of Light.