Happy Solstice!

Today is the shortest day (and longest night) of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. From here on out, the days are going to be getting longer. Yes!

The Winter Solstice is just one of the holidays we’ll be celebrating, as we take off from Brewing until 2014.

(Not to worry, City Hall, we’ll be back in the New Year.)

In the meantime, if you’re wondering what the other holidays are that we’ll be marking (Saturnalia? Festivus?) don’t get too fancy. We’ll be opening some presents, chowing down and yukking it up with family members and following up the meal with a big hike, like many of you, probably.

Since we brought up the subject of solstices, the pivot points for the seasons, don’t ever get caught making the mistake some Harvard graduates famously made at commencement when a filmmaker asked: “What what causes the seasons?”

In the 1987 Snepps and Sadler film “A Private Universe,” the kids get it quite wrong, in spite of their fancy education.

Watch them bobble it in this clip from the documentary but first try and answer the question yourself. (We recommend you take this self-test before downing any spiked solstice eggnog.)