e'en

The year is dead. Long live the year.
As we harvest what's left of the daylight and prepare for the dark time ahead, let us put up stores of joy and comradeship and family, of sex and storytelling and just causes, of reunions and friendly partings and every last glowing sunset of this sunset of the year.
Put them up and hold them tight, and remember that while at the year's darkest we open presents, that's just to tide us over for the opening of the brand new spring to come, just a little longer, just a little longer.
Let us remember those gone before us, and let them go kindly and with love, even as we hold close those still with us. And let us not forget that it's just before the leaves fall that they break out in breathtaking color.
It's time for warm ovens and woodsmoke, for shivering and shuddering, for candlelight and moonlight, for sleet and wind and the shaking of the secure. It's time for quaking. It's time to cover some faces and show others brighter. It's time for losses and lessons.
Honor to our ancestors and our beloved deceased. May our holidays be just chill enough to bring us closer together.