Written by: Maya Jacobs
Season’s greetings to all the souls out there who might read this, I hope your holidays are filled with light, joy, love, and comfort.
Growing up, my childhood was a place of magic, wonder, adventure, and light. Every year when the golden leaves would blow off the trees and winter would breathe its first breaths, I would always get so excited because I knew Advent season had finally arrived. We all may feel the Advent season in different ways, but my own experience is one of seeking and bringing forth a celebration of inner light into the long outer darkness of winter.
The primary observance happens over the four weeks leading up to Christmas, with each Sunday being a special day to honor the light. In our house we light a candle and say a verse, beginning with the light of the stones, then following into the light of the plants, the light of the beasts, and the light of humankind. We say a blessing to honor the spirits of that week, then we all sit down and eat a meal together. Advent gives us the opportunity to reflect more deeply on ourselves and the experiences we have had while also gathering our courage for the coming year.
My family’s Advent traditions are the most sacred and magical experiences of my life and they have had a profound impact on who I am now as a young adult, and as a human being. One of the traditions I look forward to most each year is reading Advent stories with my mom and twin brother. Beginning on December 1st, we read together each night before going to bed. “The Yule Tomte and the Little Rabbits” by Ulf Stark and Eva Eriksson is one of my favorites. Each of the twenty-five chapters is beautifully illustrated and only a few pages long, and we have only ever read one chapter a day for 25 days.
The anticipation of the next chapter was, and still is, a keen delight, allowing us to take in the impressions and make them our own within our imaginations. Over many years of reading this book, along with another of my favorites, “Findus and the Christmas Tomte” by Sven Nordquist, I have come to notice how the Advent season is a time of getting very clear about what it is we want to manifest in our world. In the book about Findus, the cat, and his owner, Pettson, I can see the struggle of longing to make someone happy, the fear of letting down those we care about, how lost we can get in that struggle. I also see how mysterious, magical, and playful the universe can be, and how a loving light shines within us all, if we can step out of our own way of seeing it.
After reading, we go together to our Advent table, where Mary, hand-sewn by my mother, makes her way along a path of golden stars. In the beginning, seashells, crystals, and bones lay along the boundaries of her path to the manger. In the second week, plants appear. In the third week our beloved felted donkey, ox, rooster, robin, and sheep make their appearance, and in the fourth week, Joseph stands at the manger, awaiting Mary, while a shepherdess, Rebecca, looks on. We light a candle, recite a verse together, and hang a golden star from the path in the sky above. Now, as I enter my adulthood, I can reflect on these dear moments and experiences and they are like a deep breath, restoring me after hard encounters and filling me with a sense of warmth, light, and love.
Two other very dear traditions within our family are the gathering of our Christmas tree and the Solstice spiral. During the week we celebrate the light of the plants and the forces and spirits of the earth and water, we go out into the forests to find our Christmas tree. Our family gathers, sometimes with friends, sometimes without, and we all go together into the mountains to find our tree. It can take many hours to find the right tree and we sometimes hike many miles into the still, silent, breathtakingly beautiful winter forest, blanketed in snow. Even though I am no longer a child in body, the whole experience is still like stepping into a fairy tale as I walk among the silent trees standing sentry above me, delighting in the sense of solitude and wonder. When we find the right tree we ask whether it is willing and wants to be our Christmas tree. We can hear its reply in our minds and hearts if we listen carefully. If it answers yes, we cut it down and take it home to decorate its branches with all our precious family ornaments, some of which are generations old, all of them holding the warm and loving light of our memories. As a child I could sit for hours, just enjoying being in the presence of such a majestic being, feeling graced by its presence in our own living room. I still sit this way today, in this season presently at hand.
The last tradition I’ll share with you all is the one that may be the closest to my heart, the Solstice Spiral, also known as the spiral of light. Around the 21st of each December falls the Winter Solstice, the longest, darkest night of the entire year. This is the night of our observances. I have been walking the Solstice spiral for as long as I can remember and it has never lost the magic or profoundness of the experience. During the day of the Solstice we search for a spot near our home that we feel is the right place. Once we’ve found the right place, we place gathered pine boughs to create a massive, walkable spiral and we place small candles in jars or bags amidst the boughs to light the path. At the very center of the spiral, we place a special altar, usually a big stump, with a larger candle on it. When evening falls, we light the candles and we core fresh apples. The cored apples then serve as a holder for a small, thin candle each of us receives. One at a time, we take our turn walking alone, slowly spiraling into the center with our unlit candle, pausing to say a prayer and light our candle with the center flame, and slowly spiraling back out, protecting our candle’s light, to where our family and friends stand in reverent silence. Each time I have walked the spiral, I have experienced something beyond words, beyond description, but to try to convey the experience, I would say the world grows silent and I feel the darkness pressing in with every step. Then, like stars appearing in an inky sky, lights shimmer upon the ground and the warm glowing flame within the innermost chamber can be seen, felt, and carried forward.
As I walk this path through the darkness towards the light, I breathe out all the things I have been holding onto in the past year that no longer serve me well. I let go and let go and let go, until arriving at the center. Once I light my candle from the inner flame, I return to the land of the living, focusing on breathing in and putting forward into the future all that I hope for in the coming year. This experience for me is like stepping into the place between worlds and just being there, without identity, a human having a human experience. It’s a profound awakening.
I have come to appreciate Advent in a new way each year as my experience of it changes. As a child, it was a time when I was filled with wonder, anticipation, joy, and warmth. Now that I am older, I anticipate it and experience it as a sacred time of deep gratitude for the world around me and the incredible things I have been given in this life: family, loved ones, friends, beloved animal companions, and all the experiences this life has offered. I hope all of you have a wonderful, loving, and bright holiday with friends, families, and dear ones. May your lights forever shine in the darkness and may your steps never falter.
A note about the author: Maya Jacobs is 18 years old and a senior in high school. This article is part of her Sterling Scholar project. Maya and her twin brother, Ari, live with their mother (FHC co-founder, Amanda Jacobs-Bissonette) and step-father in a small town in the Utah desert, along with two dogs, two parakeets and three ducks. Maya and Ari attended a public Waldorf charter school in Colorado for kindergarten through 8th grade and have been enrolled in public high school since 9th grade. They’re looking forward to graduating this May and attending college together in Fall 2026.
This post was originally published in the Holiday 2026 Newsletter