Yule Tidings!
Merry Meet my dearest friends! I am so glad that you have taken the time to visit my Yule page! I hope that you will enjoy your visit!
Pagans welcome and joyfully celebrate the Yule season! It is the birthday celebrate of the new Sun God and finally the great Goddess' (who is also the Great Mother) labor is finished and she can rest.
Winter Solstice is celebrated…the longest night and shortest day. On this, the longest night of the year and the darkest, new hope sparks. We welcome back the light into our lives and we know there are better things to come.
Traditional customs of the season are much like those which Christians follow with the celebration of Christmas. We decorate trees, go caroling, give presents to others, light Yule logs and candles, celebrate the birth of the new Sun God, fill our homes with mistletoe and holly, and gather together.
Christmas, in fact, has always been more Pagan then Christian. Yule predates Christmas in all honesty. Mike Nichols explains in an article, "In fact, if truth be known, the holiday of Christmas has always been more Pagan than Christian, with it's associations of Nordic divination, Celtic fertility rites, and Roman Mithraism. That is why both Martin Luther and John Calvin abhorred it, why the Puritans refused to acknowledge it, much less celebrate it (to them, no day of the year could be more holy than the Sabbath), and why it was even made ILLEGAL in Boston! The holiday was already too closely associated with the birth of older Pagan gods and heroes. And many of them (like Oedipus, Theseus, Hercules, Perseus, Jason, Dionysus, Apollo, Mithra, Horus and even Arthur) possessed a narrative of birth, death, and resurrection that was uncomfortably close to that of Jesus. And to make matters worse, many of them pre-dated the Christian Savior."
But lets not get into an argument of who has more right to the season. In fact we all, no matter which path we have chosen to travel, have the right to celebrate this most beautiful and magickal season however we see fit. With so many of our customs and the Christian's customs alike, it lends us all a hand to celebrate together while at the same time observing our own interpretations.
Santa Claus is also know as Saint Nicholas and came to American with the Dutch in the seventeenth century. There are many stories about how St. Nicholas came to be, but Dr. Clement C. Moore's poem, "A Visit from St. Nicholas" (The Night Before Christmas), written in 1822 is given the credit of painting the portrait of Santa Claus in our mind's eye.
A web master at Paganet wrote, "There may be some very distinct Pagan connections behind jolly old Santa. Nik was a name for Woden, who rode a white horse through the sky. In early folklore, Santa also rode a white horse though the sky. Woden is very much a Holly King figure, as is Santa Claus. Some have said he is a confusion between Saturn, who is stern and solemn, and Bacchus, who is anything but. Thus we get the jolly fat man with rosy cheeks who brings toys to the children, but only to the good ones!"
Along with that, I just recently watched a cartoon movie on Cartoon Network called, "The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus" that I believe to be one of the best stories that explains Santa Claus and his legend that I have ever seen.
It tells how he was found the magickal beings on the edge of their forest and was raised by a wood nymph and how he began giving toys to the children of the world, how he was granted immortality by all the Gods and Goddesses and the other things about his life such as the reindeer, his sleigh, how all the toys get made, etc. It was a wonderful movie. I am hoping to catch it on again so that I may record it and have a copy of it for my own.
If you haven't seen it, check your local listings for Cartoon Network to see if you can catch it. It's on again on December 23, 2000 at 7PM EST and the 24th as well. I don't think you will be sorry and if you have children, they'll love it.
Bring a
tree into your home and decorate it with your favorite ornaments.
Some ornament suggestions would include apples, stars, moons, suns,
candy canes and lots of lights!! Make
strings of popcorn and cranberries for your tree or, even better, to
put on your shrubs outside, or other areas outside your home so that
squirrels, birds and other creatures could get a Yule time treat!
Make a
hand-made gift for the ones you love or give them something of your
own that you treasure. In this way you would be sharing yourself
with them. Bring
lots of greenery into your home to remind you that, even in the
darkest times, life does thrive and go on. Think mistletoe, ivy and
holly! On
solstice night, turn out all the lights in your home (make sure you
have a candle ready with matches). After dwelling on the dark for a
few moments, light the candle and welcome the Light back into the
world. If you wish, gather together a number of candles beforehand
and light them all from the central candle (which should be gold or
yellow). Then go through your house turning on every light.
Volunteer
at a local shelters, hospice care centers, nursing homes, schools,
etc. Decorate
and burn a Yule log. Have fun
and remember all those that you love. 
Whatever way you choose to celebrate Yule, remember there is no wrong way. Yule is magickal and it signifies the turning of the wheel. The wheel has made it's complete circle and a new rotation is beginning.
I sincerely wish you and your's a very happy and love-filled Yule season!
