We entered the dark part of the year this past weekend. You crossed over the threshold and now stand closer to the winter solstice than you do the autumn equinox. You’re on the other side of the year from the merry month of May at the absolute grimmest stretch; the days are dark, growing darker yet, and there will be no brightness, no brilliance, no break in the dark for another month and a half.
Well, except for you.
It all hinges on you now, northern man. You set the tone, stay the momentum, reclaim evergreen-old ways.
Hearth-keeper.
Merry-maker.
Father.
You are called now to presence. You are called now to keep. We so often see the next fifty-or-so days with Thanksgiving and the run-up to Christmas as an exhausting marathon feast.
For you though, it is a vigil.
The world asks that you show your quality as husband, father, son, and neighbor now. The days are few, the nights long, and within that ever-narrowing time, every act carries outrageous weight. You are also tempted by distraction now, however. It is so easy to say you are tired, to turn on the game after Sunday dinner, to linger in the garage, to sigh as your wife asks you to get the decorations down from the attic.
To fade.
Do not withdraw now. Do not diminish yourself as the shadows grow long at the woodline. Do not let the world turn without your strong hand upon it. When the outside world grows harsh, when the fields lie still, when your home fills with the excited sound of preparation, you must be there. Climb the ladder and hang the wreath. Fetch the wood. Surprise your wife. Gather the children. These small deeds are wards against the dark, they are prayers reaffirming that life continues, that the warmth you bring and grow and tend cannot be extinguished.
Remember that you establish the temper of every hour. While your wife is reflecting on where best to lean the cornstalks on the front porch, you need to be determining the very air of the day. You need to be slipping your children a little candy from the Halloween hoard and proclaiming your right of taxation. You need to be planning outings, carving meat, and remarking with authority on things you know nothing of. You need to be dropping in on the women in your life with an armful of mums and a gallant stride. You need to be leaving surprises for friends and sneaking the dog a morsel of Sunday dinner under the table with a wink and a nod to the nearest child. The kind of wink only a father can give, the kind that forever keeps you in their confidence and says “I will always be on your side.”
The home needs your warmth. The table needs your weight. The children watch you and learn what good endurance looks like in the ordinary tiring hours when the sun sets too early. Bring them light, laughter, guidance. Let your presence be the keystone that centers, that steadies the room. When your wife leans into the labor of the season, the quiet shaping of the home, you must meet her there. The work belongs to both. Your touch upon the hearth-work is the old inheritance, the way men once met the seasons and cycles of life with quiet reverence. Attend to it. Mend the last of the fences, light the candles, stand in the raw descent of dusk and know what is asked of you now.
Just as the jack-o-lanterns give way to the garland, so too does your autumnal joviality and Thanksgiving revelry give way to something deeper. Something hallowed and evergreen. Something old. So many of our old ceremonies and traditions surrounding the solstice and Christmas have entirely disappeared; they lie scattered and desecrated in the shadows of convenience and commerce. We have lost something ancient, something equal parts solstice bonfire and midnight mass, something green and white, wild and hallowed.
Where are the home-spun fireside delights of yesteryear, the halls decked with the rustic charms of mistletoe and holly, the candles, the fires, the caroling? These august customs of sheer, unbridled optimism flourished when men had a little more vitality, when they were a little more dangerous, when they threatened to drive the dark away. We all crave the same thing our forebears sought however: the assurance that our homes will outlast the night, that the days will grow longer, that the year will begin anew. Now, here in the long dark of the year, you need to reflect on those good old traditions that came before you, you need to reclaim the discarded crown of holly. It is you who now bears the torch upon the hill, you who now lights the candles, you who now tends the hearth.
The year will die and when it does, when the trees stand black against the snow, when the days begin their slow return, you will see what your keeping has wrought. Your wife will move through the rooms in quiet contentment. Your children will laugh in the warmth you have made. The dog will rest near the fire knowing all is well. The house will hold a stillness that feels like victory. Outside, the fields will sleep beneath frost, and you will know that you have met the season’s demand. You have stood where you were needed. You have tended what was inherited. The world will turn again, but for now, you sit in the light of your own making, watching as your family orbits around you as planets around a sun they never doubt will rise. The cold cannot touch you. The dark cannot enter.
You have kept faith.
You have kept watch.
And in this keeping, you will have remembered what it means to hold the light.
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