Season’s meetings

Those hoping to clutch a last cup of holiday cheer before the New Year beckons will have a multitude of options available to them over the next few days, from solstice celebrations to holiday pageants.

Today’s winter solstice, the beginning of winter, is also the shortest day of the year.

Endangered Planet Gallery, 384 Forest Ave., Suite 13, plans to celebrate it at 7 p.m. with a one-hour reception launching its online Peace Hourglass and highlighting peace-centric works from the year’s shows. John McConnell, the creator of Earth Day, also will call in to speak to the assembly.

The Peace Hourglass, created by gallery founder Charles Michael Murray, is a visual sculpture that continuously streams the word “peace” in more than 300 horizontal rows; each row highlights a different language, in alphabetical order. The rows stream at different speeds and directions, but will eventually align. The hourglass can be viewed online at www.PEACE.EndangeredPlanet.net.

Crystal Cove State Park is also holding a guided beach walk to celebrate the solstice at 4 p.m.; visitors are asked to bring a candle for each person in their group and an optional musical instrument.

The meeting place will be the Pelican Point Parking Lot No. 2. From Coast Highway, turn coastward at the Newport Coast stoplight, turn right at the kiosk and left into the first lot.

Reservations are required; call (949) 645-8489.

Perhaps the most glaring figure in the holiday landscape is Sister Maripat Donovan, who happily introduces “classes” of paying students to the CSI version of the nativity story at Laguna Playhouse in “Sister’s Christmas Catechism: The Mystery of the Magi’s Gold.”

The show runs daily through Christmas Eve, to sate those who feel a twang of guilt at not attending Mass that day.

Described at the playhouse as “CSI Goes to Bethlehem,” the show features Sister hunting for said gold, after she explains to the class that the magis’ myrrh and frankincense were employed at the time, but the gold seemingly disappeared.

She also teaches the class about the history of nativity sets (and has students create their own nativity/crime scene), shares holiday customs and analyzes Christmas carols line by line. She will have gifts to distribute to the good students, and bad students will be reprimanded accordingly.

Laguna churches are also offering up a variety of special services for the spiritually inclined.