The slow, steady growth of darkness of the approaching winter has made for two snowfalls in December, giving beauty to the cold season. Once the solstice passes, the changing season will slowly bring new light even as the winter, lagging behind the light, will likely become colder and harsher before the awakening of spring.

We continue to feed birds and squirrels in the winter feeders, providing some food during the scarce season. On days where our granddaughter sleeps over, the toddler delights in feeding the birds and watching as they and a squirrel or two gathers to eat.

“Look, it’s Squirrel Nutkin!” I tell her, referring to a mischievous character from the young girl’s Beatrix Potter stories. Our granddaughter goes to the window and watches with delight, expressing her glee by chattering mixed with high-pitched squeals of joy.

Some older people in families, remembering disappointments about losing the enchantment of the Earth when they discovered that Santa Claus was a fake and forgery manufactured by deceitful parents, play down the magical world that children seem to live in. Having never really believed in Santa Claus myself, I am on the other end of the spectrum and excitedly tell the impressionable young one fable after fable of Santa Claus, elves, reindeer, and sleighs flying through beautiful, starry skies onto snow-covered rooftops.

“It’s easy to get into the spirit of Christmas when you have children in your life,” I told my wife, who, as usual, was busy with many Christmas decorating, craft, and baking projects.

”Um-hmm,” she replied, “It sure is,” diplomatically failing to point out that she shares the joy of the holiday with our family through hard work making the season special for all of us, while I often retreat into journaling and self-reflection. It is that work of family, hearth and home that makes so much possible in our lives, yet she has not been paid a dime for all her decades of devotion.

Like the traditional roles of family in our culture, my contribution to the season includes providing money from work in the outside world, small help with planning and a little baking. Since Christmas is, more than any other Christian holiday, a celebration of children, it is inevitable that women in our culture are more apt to focus it than men.

Like my own slow centering on Christmas, in Western history the holiday seems to be one way that patriarchy has begun to awaken to the joys of children. Beginning with an ennoblement of a special child deserving gifts and providing humanity with tremendous blessings, the birth of the son of Christmas, occurring at the rebirth of the Sun, deifies a child. So children are to old people such as my wife and I, who find solace and purpose in the joys of a grandchild while we face the loss of loved ones in our families and friends.

The story of the birth of a god at Winter Solstice, only to suffer death later in the year, is a retelling of stories of solar and human birth-death-rebirth stories like Hercules and Samson, as was common in the ancient world. The ennoblement of the child in the story of Jesus is an important improvement over what the prophets of the Babylonian Captivity, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, rightly called the abomination of child sacrifice that the Hebrews, like many warfare societies, practiced to please their god. This ennoblement of the sacrificial lamb, slowly growing in our history like the light following the darkness of the solstice, brought with it gifts not to a church or a shrine, but to our own children and families. Patriarchs have slowly, unconsciously begun recognized to recognize the sacredness of the lives of those in our families, celebrating our love for them in the indulgence of the magic of Christmas. In doing so, patriarchs and patriarchy have begun to awaken to one of the many long-neglected joyous responsibilities of the Feminine.

Following a hodgepodge of traditions and rituals, ranging from stockings and Christmas trees to following the death and rebirth of sunlight at the solstice, I consider the intention I make for the slowly coming year. Last year, I chose to act on faith. That decision led me into a whirlwind of career change, whose effects I will only be able to judge in time. The decision, like my self-reflection at the solstice, focused on my life and aspirations and only grudgingly, if at all, recognized my family and the crucial role they play in my life.

Accordingly, my intention for the new year is a three-fold reflection of my growing faith:

To have faith in my family
To create boundaries between myself and toxicity and toxic people
To focus on eliminating toxicity of thought, word, and deed within me

It seems to me that this is the best way I can improve as a member of my family. Talking about this to a twelve-step group I’m a member of, I said that it seems that this is the essence of the teachings of the Twelve Steps. After acting on faith to make a change in the outer world, it is crucial that the next change be within me, especially within my heart. According to many faiths, change within our hearts have the greatest ability to transform our lives as we face the hard human world in the slowly growing light of the cold, lustrous winter.