Winter Solstice

from the East Wind Blog, December 26, 2016

The official East Wind holiday for December is the Winter Solstice. We celebrate the end of a prosperous year and are excited for the days to grow longer. With eager anticipation, we look forward to another thriving year for our community.

Airik presents his Artmas gift to Jan

The big Solstice festivity is Artmas, which is East Wind’s version of Secret Santa, essentially. About thirty communards participated this year. Each person draws a name out of a hat and then handcrafts a gift for the person they drew. The idea is to spend little to no money on the project and allow for people’s creativity and artistic ingenuity to be shared. This year’s gifts included several beautiful paintings, a stained glass elephant, a woodcut butterfly, a sexy calendar, wind chimes, a knife, and a leather bound notebook. A lot of communitarians went all out this year, lookin’ good!

Artmas 2016

And of course, there was delicious food and treats for everyone throughout the day. Petey, Fran, and Joston served up a delicious Mexican meal of beef (East Wind raised) fajitas, rice, guacamole, and veggies (also East Wind raised). After dinner people relaxed in the Music Room with whisky cider and a small group played music outside around the fire. Happy Solstice everyone!

Chocolate chip muffins!

Artmas gift for Mandar, one of the East Wind Ranch managers