A Happy and Bright Toyotathon to You All...

"The wind blows cold and dreary,

    across the whitened plain;

And we see the oaks with their branches bare,

Through the frost on the windowpane." 

-From December by Joseph D. Herron

Hello Readers!

Welcome to December. The end of the year, already? Time flies and all that...

Happy Toyotathon to all who celebrate! We're a proud Toyota family, and each year Toyotathon brings gladness and joy to our hearts. 

You can finance for as low as 1.99?!?!

Nothing new to report from our homestead in SoCal. We're cozy and snug, planning 2025 as best we can. Hope to have some announcements about future projects for you soon. 

For our penultimate blog of the year, we're going to explore December in all her glory, with fun facts and whatnot.

Ready? Let's jump in.

Fun Facts About December

December sounds like it's referencing the number 10, doesn't it? Well, it is. That's because December used to be the tenth month of the year, back in the days of the Roman calendar which only had ten months (the silly Romans started the year with March). When they made the switch to 12 months they kept the name even though it no longer made sense. Kind of a bummer, honestly. Duodecimber sounds pretty cool, doesn't it? We were robbed of that for a now inaccurately named month.

December is jam-packed full of holidays. We all know about National Brownie Day on the 8th of course, but what else happens this month?

• December 6 is St. Nick's Day.
• December 7 is Pearl Harbor Day.
• December 8 is Bodhi Day--A Buddhist holiday celebrating the enlightenment of Buddha.
• December 13 is the Day of the Horse--So be sure and watch Mr. Ed reruns and give your favorite equine a carrot.
• December 21 is the Winter Solstice--The shortest day of the year. In olden times, people commemorated this by celebrating the "rebirth" of the sun. More on that in a bit.
• December 25 is Christmas, and also the first day of Hanukkuh.
• December 26 is Boxing Day in Canada and the UK, and also the first day of Kwanzaa.
• December 31 is International Stand Near Someone You Want to Kiss at Midnight Day. 

Now, a bit more about the solstice, cause we find these ancient rituals fascinating. 

"Yule" was the celebration of the rebirth of the sun. Days were going to start getting longer, the land would grow fertile again, etc. That calls for a party. 

When Christianity began spreading to northwest Europe, rather than tell the locals that their pagan rituals were trash, the Pope shrewdly adopted and aligned their solstice holiday with his new Christmas holiday, so that the people could keep what they already loved and also try something new. Many of our Christmas traditions are just adopted pagan holiday traditions. 

One of the main aspects of the Yule celebration was the burning of the Yule log. The burning was meant to convince the sun to come back. It wasn't just a log though, folks burned a whole tree. That sucker was burning for the entire 12 days of Christmas. 

We could do an entirely different blog on the Yule Log dessert, the Bûche de Noël, but we'll spare you. 

DO NOT BURN THIS YULE LOG

Also, mark your calendar for December 13th. That's when the Geminid meteor shower takes place. Geminid showers are very active, so if you've got a clear sky where you are and are willing to stay up late, you should be able to make good view of them. 

That's all for now, friends, we'll leave you with an hauntingly bleak poem by Caleb Prentiss.

December Days

Ruthless winter's rude career

Comes to close the parting year;

Fleecy flakes of snow descend,

Boreal winds the welkin rend.

Reflect, oh man! and well remember

That dull old age is dark December;

For soon the year of life is gone, 

When hoary hairs like snow come on.

Oof. We'll reflect Caleb, thanks so much.

Until next time,

~2authors