Do you celebrate the solstice? It has long been one of my favourite days, when we tilt from light to dark, and dark back towards the light. It is also one of my happy words, and the magnet that drew me into writing my first book - “write between the solstices” invited Kristin Hatcher from Writing in Community, and next thing you know, I was holding a book in my hands!
This is a celebration season for many. It has been a celebration season for centuries as we mark the movement of seasons. Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanza, Festivus, Solstice, we choose who we congregate with and whether food, religion, or service is our way of marking the moment.
However and with whomever you celebrate, I send you blessings.
What I love about Christmas
“The food! The memories! You should share that chapter on Christmas in Goa from your book, Karena,” suggested my wonderful Crow sisters. “You light up like a Christmas tree when you share these details. What I hear is the sense of community.”
What makes your end-of-year celebrations so extra special? For me, they are a moment to gather, hug and cuddle, eat, relish the company of those in our lives, reflect and give gratitude. [I recognize that this time of year can also be a challenge for some. If that is you, please reach out to a friend.]
Community - as you may have gathered - is very important to me both here on Tribe Tilt, and in my real and virtual lives. It is the glue that holds us together, the sticky that creates purpose and intention for staying the course in our daily activities. It is what makes each of you precious to me.
I’m sure you have much to do this weekend. So here is a short excerpt from "Contours of Courageous Parenting - Tilting Towards Better Decisions” (photos included at the request of Crow-sister and Tilter Joann Malone) explaining why it was so important to share my lived experience of Christmas in a tiny corner of the world with my young children.
From the “Zoom Out” chapter in the book, slightly edited:
When you play with time you can have Christmas all year
“How about taking the kids to India for Christmas this year?” I asked. I hadn’t been back in ten years and we wanted to introduce our children to Goa, and to our family.
Friends laugh when we describe how our planned three-week Christmas vacation in India gradually tilted into a year of travel.
But it was simple: we chose to redefine the parameters and change our relationship with time.
Santa parade, village style
Christmas is my favourite time to visit Goa. It is a short intense season of celebration and community. I have great memories from my years growing up there, and I wanted to share them with my husband and kids:
Extended families gathered around the dining table all working together to make Christmas sweets. Christmas morning is usually a wonderful parade as these trays of delicacies are traded with relatives and neighbours in a tradition we call “kuswar”. In this photo we are making a Goan classic called kulkuls (sweet deep-fried dough in any language and every cuisine!) Here the kids are at my aunt’s table, learning to roll them in the classic delicate shape of shells or the easier ridged ones rolled off the back of a fork. (The challenge is to make sure enough survive the freshly-made first hour to make it to the sharing platters!)
Christmas caroling door-to-door with little candles, collecting money for local charities. It is a time of music and camaraderie (right, Louis and Ricky?)
The Christmas star hung prominently in the balcony of each home. When I was young these were proudly hand-crafted with a bamboo frame, lovingly & creatively covered in multiple layers of flimsy tissue-paper in friendly neighbourhood competition.
A modern version of the stars that decorate each home
The focus is on religion, creativity and play in the pagents, not the commercialization of Christmas
two little shepherds
I remembered the little pencil cactus tree my mother would use in lieu of Christmas trees that are not indigenous to our part of India, and be grateful for the single Enid Blyton book that would give me hours of joy! I still love seeing books under the tree.
But a family of five flying in the most expensive travel window of the year – what were we thinking?
So, we started asking “What if?” and “How about?” and “Why?”
Our original travel dates of December 18 through January 3 were based on a traditional Canadian academic calendar. But WhatIf?
● What if that was no longer a constraint? ● What if we were not yet working? ● Were we held to the dates of Dec 18-Jan 3? ● What if the kids were not in school? ● What if we home-schooled them?
Once on the other side of the world, could we use the opportunity to expose our kids to new experiences?
Could we use this pocket of time to transition our minds and expectations from the frantic energy of Manhattan to a calmer Canadian mindset?
The kids’ lives and friendships would already have been disrupted by us moving countries. What if we did not rush to place them in school, and instead spent time with our young family and introduced them to all the people we loved — lovingly and in an unhurried way — so they could create their own relationships and their own memories?
As we started exploring these options, we discovered that with a little extra creativity we could fit a year’s worth of air travel into not much more than the travel budget originally quoted for our three-week Christmas holiday. In the end, we traveled for nine months, meeting friends and family in sixteen countries on five continents.
Our Christmas family portrait
By zooming out and changing the frame, we had stepped into a completely different opportunity for us and our family - one that continues to ripple through our lives.
In the comments below, you will see one from Ricky. We grew up together in that little village. His words helped me reflect further on why it was important for me to share the Christmas experience of my youth - where Hindu, Muslim, and Christian co-exist - with my children. In today's increasingly divisive world, I am pleased that I was/am able to offer my children great role models and examples of how communities can hold different ideas yet work together in mission and harmony. It is the best example of hope and humanity. That is what our corner of the world offered us. And what I wish to foster through Tribe Tilt going forward.
Whatever you choose to celebrate at this time of year, blessings. My wish for you is the light of the sun and the warm company of family and friends.
Thank you for being a part of Tribe Tilt. We are a group that believes we can make a difference to the people and places that are precious to us - that we have hope and agency in our lives. Among other, we welcome Maria
(The Flouri-dated Newsletter) to Tribe Tilt. Amanda congratulations on publishing your bi-lingual book The Little Bun (bao) which your daughter illustrated.
What a beautiful story! Thank you for sharing your wisdom and the beauty of community with us!
What a beautiful memory and fond memories 🥹