With Thanksgiving behind us, the holiday season has officially begun.  What should be a joyous and revitalizing time of year actually makes many people cringe with the thought of endless shopping, meaningless events to attend, obligations, and a feeling of being overwhelmed. The commercialization and craziness of the holidays are certainly one reason we feel stressed out during this time of the year.  There is another reason many of us struggle with the holidays, and we have to look to Chinese medicine and the theory of Yin and Yang to understand it. The concept of Yin and Yang is a way of describing the world around us.  Yang represents things that are sunny, light, warm, and active.  In contrast Yin describes things that are relatively cooler, darker, rejuvenating, and nourishing. The winter solstice on December 21 is the most Yin day of the year, in that the solstice has the shortest …