Saturday, December 17, 2011, 11am until 9:00pm

Join us at North Mountain Vineyards for our annual Winter Solstice Bonfire. Please drop by and enjoy a glass of Glühwein, eat German cookies, and help us bring light into the longest night of the year! We promise to keep you toasty warm on what will most certainly be a cool evening.

Live Music:

2:00-5:00pm My Lucky Fish

6:30-8:30pm Charlotte and Charley Smith Duet

Join the group in a torch light walk through the vineyard, to view the starry heavens and further lighten the darkest night of the year.

We will also be offering a hearty veggie beef soup for those who work up an appetite stoking the fire and drinking wine. We look forward to seeing you! No admission fee. German Cookies are complimentary, Beef Soup is $6.50.

Winter Solstice Bonfire Spell

 On the darkest night of the year gather one or two holly leaves and tear them into many peaces. Place these holly leave crumbles in a sheet of paper onto which you have written in red in one single word what quality or trait you would like to be born within yourself along with the newborn light. Twist the paper closed and throw it in the Solstice Bonfire. As it burns, and your heart is pure, see your wish fulfilled.

Yule: Winter Solstice Bonfire

The mighty Germanic tribes of Goths, Suebes, Bajuwares, Angles, Saxons, Francs, Visigoths, Vikings, Allemans (to name only a few) had swept over from the East of Europe to what we know today as Central Europe for several centuries, mainly from 200 BC to 500 AD.

The melting of the ice caps had created uninhabitable swamps and lakes throughout Europe, and the Germanic tribes were looking for dry, good land. Thus they made history with their mass migration to Western and Southern Europe, conquering even the mighty Western Roman Empire.

Many of you visiting North Mountain Vineyards today may be of Germanic origin, thus you will probably feel a great kinship to the bon fire. The Christian religion had not reached what was known in those days as barbaric countries. The Germanic tribes, also known as Teutons, as well as the Celts native to France and the British Isles, where therefore referred to as pagans.

The bonfire is a true pagan ritual. The darkness of the long nights needed to be conquered by bringing light into the darkness. Huge fires where built, tar balls rolled town mountains and hill sides, torches where placed in snow. People needed to be reassured that the light would return, that the sun would return, lengthen their days and grow their grain. -

To this day the custom of lighting fires on the longest and the shortest night of the year have held the fascination of modern Europe. The Alpine communities of Europe and Scandinavia today have torch light parades down the ski slopes and bonfires on the foot of the mountains signaling comfort and re-assurance that the light will return. The pagan ritual has turned into a modern celebration of light.

Krista Jackson-Foster, M.A.