Merry Christmas from Latvia!

Although our Christmas celebration at home is pretty quiet, our celebration out of the house has been a little "louder" with visits to Riga's Christmas markets and lots of school-related concerts and festivities. Merry Christmas, from Riga!

Winter Solstice

Christianity came late to Latvia. As a result, longer than almost any country in Europe, Latvia managed to hold on to it's pagan roots. Today, pagan festivals remain a more important part of the Latvian calendar than Christian festivals. In the pagan calendar, some of the most important dates are the solstices, one of which, the winter solstice, was celebrated just a few days ago. On the shortest day of the year, we joined thousands in Riga's Old Town, carrying torches and pulling a log on a rope through the cobbled streets. As we passed homes and shopfronts, the log absorbed all the evil spirits it could hold until, finally, the log and dozens of others dragged to the same final location, were thrown into a fire, starting a new year cleansed of the evil brought forward from the previous year.  A few days later, we celebrated again at the Open Air Museum. Songs and dancing, logs and fires -- it's this celebration of old traditions that draws us to Latvia. I have to admit, however, that we did feel a little uneasy much of the time. Having seen the film Midsommar just the other day, all the animal masks, torches, and the ever-present images of death did feel more than just a little foreboding.

Rai is 128 Months Old!

Jurmala Light Festival

As the days get shorter and darker, more and more lights fill windows street sides, and parks. Last weekend, Jurmala had their annual tree lighting festival, flipping that switch to turn on the lights in Dzintari Meza (forest) park. It was cold but, oh, so beautiful!

Wintry Walk

When we saw the snow falling one Sunday morning, we knew that we had to get out for one of our nearby boardwalk hikes.  Amazing -- let's keep that snow falling!