, originally uploaded by willisgirl.

For the second year in a row I went to church this evening to see the Winter Solstice celebratory ritual. The ritual was written by a church member who has a new book out called, In Natures Honor: Myths and Rituals Celebrating the Earth. The ritual that our church uses appears in her book. As you can recall last month I went to her book signing at the Borders book store in Timonium.

You know, I feel its nice and all that the church I go to has a Winter Solstice service. Since I do after all, celebrate Winter Solstice/Yule. However, I swear tonights Winter Solstice service was a direct copy of last years service. I even saw one of the dancers from last years service back again to participate in the same exact dance! It was as though I was trapped in some sort of a weird time warp.

Just to be absolutely sure I am going to hold on to this years program to see if next years program is a direct point by point copy. Then again it is called a Winter Solstice ritual so I suppose that de ja vu comes along with the territory.

One thing I can say is that two things changed personally for me in comparison to last years service. One, I finally got the chance to try non alcoholic wassail. Last year they ran out of it before I could give it a try. Having finally tried the legendary drink of Christmas I can now say that I was not missing much. Wassail tastes suspiciously like apple cider! Also different from last year I did not loose the sprig of holly that I had pinned to my coat. Instead I pinned it to my sweater. In fact I still have it!