For roughly eight years now, some of my friends and I have been having Solstice celebrations in lieu of Christmas parties. Our very first Solstice party, back in December 2000, consisted of rather earthy-mother-goddess-pagan stuff. Over the years, however, this event has evolved in absurdity, such that it now has little to do with pagan solstice celebrations, and rather a lot to do with dressing strangely and being weird in public. It's a lot of fun. Pictures from previous PseudoSolstice parties can be viewed here, if you're interested. This year we had a few additions to our usual PseudoSolstice crew - Gwen, who is currently home from Korea, and Rob, whom I met in Korea and who is now back in the States. Rob also brought a friend of his, who unfortunately seemed REALLY normal and very uncomfortable having to be part of our shenanigans. (You might understand why, once you see our photos!) And now, without further adieu....
We tried *really* hard to get Alex to wear this, but he refused.
Instead, Alex and Chris sported nearly-matching,
too small thrift store jackets and bizarre hats.
Then there were the ladies: Me, Melissa and Gwen
(At one of my ghetto ass street signs. Yay, ghetto.)
We hung out on my front porch, playing with swords...
And posing for pictures...
The neighbor kids seemed to take the whole thing in stride...
...as did the people in WalMart, who were oddly friendly. Whenever we dressed like this and went to the Lake City, FL WalMart, we would get dirty looks and people ushering their children away from us as though we were emissaries of Satan. Here we got smiles, cat-calls, and had a nice conversation with the woman who took this picture.
Rob and his Very Normal Friend arrived while we were at WalMart.
Then we went to Wong's Palace for some Chinese food.
Melissa would like everyone to know that she is not fat, she is pregnant.
One day, these photos will utterly mortify her daughter.
Rob acquired Chris's hat, and morphed into the kung-fu Boy George.
Also, I really love my house :-)
5 comments:
Xmas video from the History Channel! The history of Xmas!
We have the Catholic Church and Pope Julius I to thank for Xmas being on December 25th as they decided to try and overthrow other traditional pagan winter holidays in establishing a greater foundation for their new religion. The 25th of December is actually the birth of Mithra—the sun god as Jesus was born nowhere near this date. Also, X does relate to Jesus as it is the first letter for Christ in early Greek versions of the New Testament and the Romans used X as an abbreviation for Christ.
http://www.history.com/minisite.do?content_type=Minisite_Generic&content_type_id=57097&display_order=5&mini_id=1290
http://www.history.com/minisite.do?content_type=Minisite_Generic&content_type_id=1252&display_order=1&mini_id=1290
http://www.allaboutjesuschrist.org/origin-of-christmas.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas
I can't believe that so few people in this country know the true history of the season. Talk about another in the many failings of the American public school systemn or the fear of very large Christian cults in the U.S.
While the season has some great qualities to it (peace on earth, good will, and all that jazz), it also is quite hard on those without the blessings of health, wealth, and those having more acute mental health problems during this time of year. I personally enjoy this time of year for all of the great holiday related movies, specials, and holiday themed tv episodes of the season that remind me of the simpler time of my youth and extended family meals.
yes space whore pose!!!!
It looks like you guys had fun! I'm so jealous - I wish I could've been there. Ah well, there's always next year, or the year after if you're not stateside.
yeah - why did nothing solstice end up happening in san diego? that looks kickass.
John - Hooray for Mithra, the first god born from a virgin on December 25th... except that really, he stole that line from Zoroaster. Bah! :-)
Moosh - Somehow I didn't do that any when I was in NY. Weird.
Stephanie - You totally would have loved it. Next time I have one, you should definitely come.
Linda - You knew all the people I knew back in those days. Can you really picture the refusing-to-dress-up-for-Halloween-DSSers celebrating the Solstice? I showed Matt H a video of our 2001 solstice party, and his response was that he was *so glad* I was no longer that weird. I was pretty offended!
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