How/How much we invest in Resetting of the Clocks

While many attend frenzied Druid Winter Solstice celebrations, our family instead ushers in The Resetting of the Clocks. Ours is a milder affair perhaps, yet we approach it with verve. Rather than the hot cocoa we drank when the kids were young, we sample food or drink from other cultures. This year, we’ll taste European drinks, radlers and shandies, and a South American favorite, the clamata. We’ll wait to imbibe these exciting peculiarities this year however until after we’ve returned from our venture out.

You see, our buddy Henry will be released from jail on 11/1, and county policy dictates that inmates be turned out at 11:59 p.m. We know good and well that the $10 bill he’ll be handed will get him only so far as the bar next door to the jail. So we’ll swing by to rendezvous with Henry and take him to his home, aka his favorite campsite. We already have a fresh sleeping bag waiting for him. We’ll add a piping hot cup of coffee from our kitchen and a few square meals that should hold him until he gets his feet on the ground.

But there’s one more tradition to carry out. When we get back home from running our errand and the drinks and fun have been had, we still don’t turn back in for the rest of the night quite yet. For we have to walk around our house barefoot. Though fraught with risk of stepping on rocks or hookworms, we take our chances each year. Our ancestors who arrived in this land from Germany habitually did this upon the first snowfall of the year, so that’s good enough for us. Also, as a nod to our German heritage, we end our spring Resetting of the Clocks mid-night fest by lighting a bonfire.

Here’s hoping there won’t be snow on the ground by 11/1 for our barefoot promenade! But if there is, so be it!

By the way, we love our practices, but not only that. We also love the practicality of resetting the time! When we hear talk of discontinuing the 'time change' to become like most of those poor AZ folk who don't reset their internal and external clocks, we're appalled! In our neck of the woods, the amount of daylight changes by a four-hour swing! So by resetting in the fall, we mitigate the mornings from being so dark quite so early. The system works so well for us, we aim to keep it!