A Very Pagan Christmas On this Christmas Eve eve, I am pondering much about this wonderful world that we are all a part of. It is an amazing feat of imagination to stop and think for a moment about all the people you know, have ever met, and —even more incredibly– the ones you have …
Midsummer. St. John’s Eve. The holiday is celebrated all over Europe, but it isn’t really a thing in America. In Latvia, the celebration of Jāni (both St. John and a mythical all-father sort of dude who is supposed to show up on the morning of the 24th of June) is probably almost as big as …
Okay, America, let’s get this right! Latvia makes the first day of school a national celebration. Every public school in the country starts on the same day every year—September 1. And on this day, students walk to school with flowers in hand to give to their teachers. I was excited to see this spectacle, so …