Image by Jill Wellington from Pixabay . Solstice is my Christmas, my world reborn. Christmas is what was and what might have been. It's the memory of feeling safe and loved when I woke. It's the excitement of waiting at the top of the stairs until Mom called my brother and I down for the start of the big day. It's the wondering what today would have been like had I had my own children — and possibly now grandchildren — to create that cocoon for, to do the baking and gifting and cooking for their memories. Yet my Catholic roots still tell me that it's the birth of hope. I love the lights of Christmas that seem to rebel against the encroaching darkness. They tell the night it cannot have the entire clock. Every year it works. Every year the Northern Hemisphere pauses and begins to turn its tilted face to the sun again. We have three new years each winter. There is the Solstice, the return of the light. There's Christmas, the birth of hope. Then there's the turni