Winter Solstice!

Winter Solstice marks the time of the year when the light returns as the sun shifts and starts to move northward again. My mom, a mermaid and sun-lover, always celebrates Winter Solstice, and I was inspired to do the same. A few weeks before Winter Solstice, I mentioned to Johnny "wouldn't it be cool to get a group of friends together to watch the Winter Solstice sunset from the Griffith Observatory and then have a party at our place afterward?" and Johnny said "yeah, it would - why don't we?" and so we did. We brought hot wassail, cheese, crackers, and cookies, and enjoyed a most spectacular sunset with our friends.


This little guy is Kian. He is Josh and Catherine's son. He has brilliant blue eyes and lots of energy!


This is looking east over Glendale. You can see some of the snow-capped mountains in the distance.


The Hollywood Sign, of course. It's the token photograph to take at the Observatory because there is such a good view of it.

Josh's family:

The sun quickly making it's way down (or I suppose I should say the earth quickly turning...)


The last little sliver of sun. There was a pretty sizable group gathered on the west side of the Observatory to watch the sunset, and when it cleared the horizon, everyone cheered. It was a good feeling to be celebrating something together with a larger group of people - there was a sense of community.




Me and Johnny (picture taken by Doran):



Josh and Catherine:



Kian - ha ha! This kid is so smiley! So fun and easy to take pictures of!



This is the group that met at the Observatory (left to right) Johnny, Doran, Josh, Catherine, Tony, Krystal, and Kian:


This is what inspired me to go to the Observatory for the Winter Solstice Sunset. They have lines charted that mark the exact places where the sun will go down at different points in the year.
Here's the marker:


And the line:

The show was just getting started when the sun went down. Looking northeast:


looking southwest (you can just make out the Christmas tree lights on top of the Capitol Records building in the bottom left corner of the picture):


looking south (the bright string of lights is Western Avenue):



Downtown Los Angeles (southeast):






Krystal looked so cute in my coat, I had to take a picture:



Wow - check out these colors! So brilliant! (this is looking west over Hollywood - you can see Capitol Records again):




Wow, what a show! After the sunset, we returned to our place for wine, fruit, cheese, beer, eggnog, cookies, and lots of other good stuff. Some more friends came by and we lit candles, played Christmas music, talked, laughed, and had an all-around wonderful time. I definitely want to make celebrating Winter Solstice an annual Renzulli tradition!