Solstice!

Today is the winter solstice... the longest night of the year. We celebrated a bit by making some decorations and then decorating our evergreen tree (a symbol from days of old that, by adding candles or lights, it gives us hope that it won't always be dark, cold, and forested with leafless trees--this tree reminds us there's still something green, right?)

It's interesting... we got this tree, normally valued around $50 in the US, for only €5, because we 'waited' until this weekend... apparently all the French buy their trees much earlier than this, and so it was on 50% off sale. We also got another couple decorations for another €7 or so, all for a reasonable setup. The most visible decorations in this picture are the paper snowflakes we added and the green paper-chain that Zander and Callie made over the last few days.

This evening we went to watch the sunset from one of the tallest hills around here, one called Bregille, but there was no sunset since it is so overcast. It was still a beautiful view, which cannot be captured with this photo, but we had a great time thinking about this time of year; talking as a family about solstice; anticipating the snow and sledding; and anticipating the longer days ahead with spring flowers...