Winter solstice, holiday traditions, family patterns, and why rituals ground us December arrives with a certain electricity — lights everywhere, crowded airports, group chats suddenly active again, and a quiet invitation to remember who we are and who we belong to. Whether you celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, the Winter Solstice, or you simply mark this time of year in your own way, the end of the year tends to pull us toward one thing: ritual. And rituals matter more than most of us realize. Long before wellness became an industry, before therapy became cool, before “self-care” had branding—humans relied on ritual to survive emotionally. Rituals were our first form of social wellness. They helped communities heal, bond, grieve, celebrate, pass down identity, and create meaning. Even now, in a world of constant scroll and distraction, rituals still do what they’ve...