We just wanted to stop in today to say happy solstice!

When we met each other, it became very quickly apparent that we share a scary amount in common (which we’ll talk a little more about when we celebrate the one year anniversary of Plaster & Disaster next month!). One of our early discoveries was that both of us celebrate the winter solstice as our December holiday — which seems like a really eerie coincidence given that solstice is not a holiday that many people celebrate or even know much about.

So why solstice? Well each of our families had some specific reasons for thinking the shift away from the more mainstream winter holidays made sense, but at the end it comes down to solstice as the embodiment of the season — a celebration of warmth, hope, togetherness, and light in the darkness.

Scientifically, the solstices are the two days of the year when the sun is the greatest distance from the equator. And since our earth rotates on a tilted axis, that means that one pole is at its closest point to the sun while one is at its furthest point. In June, the northern hemisphere is the closest to the sun and the southern hemisphere furthest away — that’s the summer solstice for the northern hemisphere and winter solstice for the southern. What we get in the north is long days and warm summer nights, and it’s heavenly.

But in December, the northern hemisphere is furthest from the sun and the southern hemisphere is closest.

That’s our winter solstice in the north, and the reason why (in addition to nonsensical daylight savings) the days are so short this time of year. In Boston the sun sets around 4pm and it’s terrible. We get sad (and for a lot of us, S.A.D.). The winter solstice is the precise day when the sun is up for the shortest period of time, usually between December 20-22. This year it’s today, the 22nd!

So why celebrate the darkest day of the year? Well there are a lot of reasons. There’s the physical — the fact that the darkest day is the perfect one to come together in family and warmth and celebrate the return of the light. Before the modern era you can imagine how much more powerful and important that was — winter is rough, imagine it without electricity and heat. When Sage was growing up, her family didn’t use electricity on the solstice as a way to appreciate this more directly.

There’s also the metaphysical — the fact that there’s a lot of (non-physical) darkness in the world. There is so much death, and hatred, and fear. There are people doing terrible things with terrible intentions, and so many more people doing terrible things with the best of intentions. Coming together in the midst of that darkness is a reminder that we create light and warmth. Or as Sage’s uncommonly mature younger brother once wrote:

The world is a dark place. But guess what — welcome to it. If you can’t find the light within yourself and shine it on the people and places you encounter, that darkness is going to seem awfully scary.

So here’s wishing you a very happy solstice, a joyful holiday season, and a New Year in which we all do our part to bring light to the world.

The holidays are really about what you can do for other people… so you are probably wondering what you can do for us.  I mean, you totally love reading this free blog and get loads of inspiration from our amazing projects continued unfounded optimism in the face of terrible disasters.  How can you give something back this holiday season?

We started writing this blog nearly a year ago, and we’ve been blown away that people actually read it.  As in, people who aren’t Brad, Sam, and our parents.  But we are insatiable, and we want more!  So, if you like this blog, what we want from you for the holidays is for you to share it with someone else who might enjoy it.  It would mean a lot to us if you would share one of our posts on social media, or email a project or post to a friend who might like it.

And, as you can see, Plaster & Disaster makes a pretty great gift for those people who are hard to buy for:

• For the friend whose staircase is ugly but you don’t know how to tell them… maybe they’ll be inspired by Sage’s hallway makeover!
• For the friend who has everything… they can’t have everything because they don’t have a cactus side table!
• For the friend who has too many opinions… they will enjoy judging which of us makes over a better lamp!
• For the friend who always sees the negative… make them very satisfied by proving them right when they see the ugly truth behind our photos!
• For the bookworm… they will probably like this makeover of a pillaged library cart!
• For the grinch who not-so-secretly hates the holidays… they will probably find our holiday home tours very satisfying!
• For the friend who reads a lot of DIY blogs… they will find our fall crafts very familiar.

Or maybe not. Maybe this is a weird thing to ask and you’ll just ignore this.  Which is fine.

Either way, thank you for reading our blog!  All joking aside, it means a lot to us and gives us a real thrill.

Over the next two weeks we’ll be posting on a lighter schedule so we can spend some extra time with our families frantically wrapping presents and stuffing things into suitcases.  (As you could probably tell from our holiday home tours earlier this month, we find this time of the year to be maybe a little overwhelming.)  We’ll still be stopping in to share a few things, just not at our usual volume.

From both of us, have a great holiday!