I just read some are welcoming the Solstice. Tomorrow is the shortest day. Then the Ancient return of the sun. The lengthening of days.

Actually, I like it dark cold or at least cool. Longer days just means the deadly humid heatwaves are coming back. Looking forward to summer is a holdover from when the seasons were still balanced.

Now it's very different.

It's all happened so fast our traditions haven't caught up with them yet. Spring doesn't exist as a season anymore. We often go literally from winter to summer.

Very hot or at least rather warm days can now drag on from late April or early May till the end of October or like this year in the Northeast the first week of November.

It may take years generations for this to be understood by the masses. That, and for seasonal traditions to change with climatic realities. Then people will look forward to cool darkness and shun the bright humid heat.

This may sound science fiction strange. However folk traditions are strong things. Traditions from Europe's "Little Ice Age" have hung on centuries pass when it made sense to honor them.

Indeed almost 'all' of our current Xmas activities come from then.

However, no one has skated on either the Thames or Hudson in some time. Most certainly not yearly. I think it was 30 or more years since the Hudson froze from bank to bank.

I remember because there was a snowshoe race from downtown Manhattan to 'Jersey in 1980 or '81. It was to be an annual event...it has never happened again. The river has not frozen that much since.

These are just the times we now live in, and customs are slow to catch up.

Actually, I wonder what traditions will be in 200/300 years at Christmas/Solstice times in NYC. Annual bright decorated flotillas sailing around the jutting tops of sunken skyscrapers perhaps?