How have I never gotten Yule up on this blog before? Several years I've been jotting down my Yuletide celebrations, but apparently in some paperform on on the LJ site that I took down several years ago.
So here are my notes about Yule this year (sans my own pictures since they're on my sister's phone).
Yule Eve-Eve: Present shopping at Joann's because we both work there and can get an employee discount on top of most everything in the store already being 30% or higher off. I'm waiting till the after christmas sales to really spend my money.
Originally we weren't going to do presents but we both started shopping in our heads for each other it eventually came out that I was planning to get her butterfly themed stuff during my next pay period (after Yule) The idea was that because we were broke we'd do our on "sister santa" where we'd pick a pre-determined amount of money and then see what we can get. First we weren't going to do anything in the present department, but then changed our minds when we suddenly found ourselves with extra money. We settled on $20-30 limit and then walked around pointing out the crafts we'd either like to get into (yarn-craft for me and scrapbooking for her) and then split up to get our shop on.
Here are some of the things I found for my sister: Ribbon, Metallic Stickers, Candy/Craft Mold, Sprinkles, and the big finale of Scrapbooking Cardstock. I had to put back jewelry making supplies because I hit my budget of $30 and actually went over by $10. I also didn't grab this simple cross stitch because it would have eaten 30% of my budget on one item. There were several other things, including more stickers, a zipper pull 3D paper butterflies that you can suspend from the ceiling that she's planning to make into a mobile something like this.
What she got me included: 2 skeins of Homespun yarn by Lion Brand (I'm under not impression it's actually spun in anyone's home) to go with my knitting loom! I like the idea of looms because you don't need special skills so when they started coming out with these and I saw them making things way faster than knitting needles (and no counting stitches!) I wanted one. Originally I wanted one to make sox with. Unfortunately I didn't know we carried them at work, so I was unable to point it out in time. A lady came up to my register with one specifically for sox and I was dumbfounded. I want this as well. It's 3 times and then some the price of the round loom (and not good for hats or anything else online, so I'll keep the small loom and just get the sock loom when I can afford it.
She also got me this cross stitch that turned out to be a little outside my skill level. The current embroidery I'm working on (there is a difference, even if you use the same floss/thread and fabric) has the design drawn on the fabric. This one does not. I'm not sure how to do a counted cross stitch, but I'll figure it out latter on when I get my current masterwork done.
Next up we have tiny glass bottles. I already have these from an earlier trip and plan to get these too at some point. But what do I do with them? Well, largely they sit there till I need spell work or to store herbs and pins. I'm not a hoarder, so I don't just keep them to keep them. If I have an excess and I"m not using them up then I don't buy more. All my herbs are in hexagon glass jars and stuck to the side of my fridge with industrial strength magnets. (Seriously, don't get art store magnets for serious DIY projects.) I even went back to a single shop on a stretch of road a full 45 minutes from my house three times before I finally caved and bought a necklace with a brass tube attached (about 1' long) that has a twist off top. I use it for spell work. Thoth claimed it after my last spell. I bought an owl necklace locket that I used for spellwork. Thoth claimed that too...
This only feeds my (and Anubis/Thoth's) obsession with empty things. If' it's a box or bottle or anything that's empty (drawers, closets, envelopes, etc) I HAVE to open it up and look inside. A quick trip to pick a friend up from his job at a furniture store ended with an HOUR of me going around and opening up every single decorative box they had on display. And opening all the cabinets. And pulling out all the drawers. I even found a way to open a couple things the employees didn't know opened. Finding where they stash all the hardware and ugly spots in the furniture is also a plus!
The last thing she got me was a scrap of fabric that won't be "big enough to make anything[e.g. clothing]" but might be "big enough for a purse". It's white with little cherry stems on it and right up my alley for a purse. I'm planning a big one with ribbons of many colors. crossing all over the place and some buttons and an iron on design.
For the actual Yule celebration we invited company over. I gave him two jars of my home canned products; one was pickled radishes and the other was strawberry margarita preserves. We ate home cooked vegan food, played with the fire and swapped gifts. Out came the alcohol and we gold embarrassing ghetto stories about our families till we were good and toasted. He sobered up and then went home. Afterwards my sister and I do what we normally do on holy days and split up into our own rooms to do our own things.
And how here I am on Yule and I don't know what to do. Normally we would have held something of a ritual in our living room to this day we did none of it. Just up went a tree, out came some gifts, in went some food and off we went to our spaces. Didn't feel like much of a celebration.
I'm Kemetic Egyptian Reconstructionist, of a sort. + Hakate, and Fox and Hummingbird. I think Grey Wolf and White Horse were there at one point, but not anymore?. What I do know is that the Egyptians did the cycle of life like every cosmology. The Wheel of the Year is the cycle of life sans cosmology. It can fit the Egyptian cosmology as well. What I'm not sure of is if I should do the Wheel of the Year Egyptian and then also do the days the Egyptians celebrated their cosmology or should I just do the Wheel genericly and the Egyptian stuff separately? The Wheel is about the seasons. It doesn't have to be religious at all. Or do I just mention the Gods during the Sabbats and then do their actual rituals on their actual ritual days?
What I do know is that when I consistently celebrate the holidays (Mabon and Samhain for instance) is that I get ideas for exactly how to own those holidays and make them meaningful and mine. I don't really have any for Yule because I've always let Melissa do whatever she wished for this holy day.
I'm doing research and compiling information about Yule. Here is what I have so far:
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Purpose: The young overtaking the old. Death of old and rebirth.
When: December 20-31st, depending on when the exact Solstice day falls. Begins on "Mother Night" and ends on "Yule Night", lasting a full 12 days.
Correspondences: Fire, colors of red and green and gold and silver and white, holly wreaths and other evergreen decorations, fancy cookies and breads. Symbols of rebirth such as stags. Baybury for wealth and happiness.
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You'll notice that by Pagan standards this feast it suppose to last for 12 days. It's suppose to bring people together mid-winter when folks are normally starving to death (or could be) and allow them to pool their resources to sit beside the good fire and stuff themselves for 12 days. Merriment, magic and friends reside within these halls.
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Most Pagans I know of just do a few things to celebrate, which consists of the usual decorating, eating, gift giving and a ritual that probably doesn't last half an hour start to finish (assuming no meditation). My Gods are the reason for the season and I want to celebrate the shit out of them! Not just celebrate but honor and I can't think of a better way to honor the Gods than with days and days of appreciation for all they do for me.
I decided to piggyback thise 12 days theme into my love of activities. Below I'm going to lose activities that anyone can do to celebrate Yule. My hypothesis is that if I just pick one activity every day then I can make this one day celebration into a full 12 days without going bank and without wearing myself out with 12 huge activities crammed into just two days (Yule and Yule eve). This list is in no real order.
1. Decorating the house. Digging out and putting up whatever decorations you have. Else seeing what you'd LIKE to have and acquiring them. In my case I wanted a wreath so I drug home a fallen branch from an evergreen and stripped the smaller branches off to make wreaths. Decorations can be a full day activity if you include things like researching different crafts, purchasing/borrowing craft materials and the time consuming task of actually hand making your own decorations. This is a good day to make tree decorations as well, such as popcorn and seed strands which can latter be given to birds. One way to call good spirits into the home is to hang silver bells on tree branches outside the home.
2. Planning activities, meals and gifts. Gifts should be something appropriate to the season that does not become tacky after Dec 25th, such as silver and white candles. Alternately something that a person might need, such as a pattern for making warm fleece booties. I would either acquire the materials for activities on this day or the items for the meal, but not both. This is also a good time to call and affirm if anyone you may have invited over is indeed coming.
3. Cleaning and cleansing. This is it's own thing. Yes, four times a year your house needs to be deep cleaned both physically and spiritually. Allergens from just a single person, non-pet home build up after just one month, as well as negative/stagnant energies. After three or four months you seriously need to dust the tops of your doors and scrub down the greasy fronts of your kitchen cabinets. 'specially if you have company coming over. Your wards should be strengthened and the blessings renewed. Start here for help if you've never had to clean a home before and here if you've never done a house cleansing and blessing.
4. Burn the Yule log from last year. What is the Yule log? It's the stump of your Yule tree from last year. If you put up a fake tree and have no Yule log then now is a good time to start the tradition. Some peeps don't like cleaning pine needles out of their carpets, but you can at least get one of the little $9 trees from the lot that fit on office table tops. It's real and will produce the required "log" when the branches are stripped after use and only the stump remains. This log is saved for the next year and burned in the fireplace for good luck. I still have mine from several years ago, but I've been sans fire place since I got it and now it's stuck in Tennessee :(
5. Tree. Get a real one if you can. It's going to cost anywhere between $20-45 but the guys on the lot will give you a stand for it and put it on your car for you. Most of them come trimmed. If you don't want to pay that much for a normal sized tree then you can buy defected and tiny table top trees for as little as $9. Plastic trees work too but nothing like a real tree in your living room slowly dying to emphasize the death process, or the fire that will spring to life out of the new wood next year to show rebirth! This getting of and putting up and decorating of the tree is it's own full day activity. Trust me. People who hate all the holiday work just burn out trying to do everything in one day. Take your time and enjoy.
6. Feed the critters. Put out bird seed, popcorn balls, peanuts and other foods far enough away from your windows that you can watch them with binoculars but not give them the impression that diving through your open window will net them the rest of the bag of goodies. This is the middle of winter and they critters who's homes we moved out homes up into have a need for food as well.
7. Charity, friends, neighbors and family. Yule is not a holiday where you're required to invite people over, especially since so many of them are not going to be Pagan (if you're from a typical family) and probably won't understand why you're celebrating "Christmas" up to five days earily. Or why nothing you have decorating your house involves barn animals and women in mumus. If you're feeling froggy you could invite them over anyway and play them your favorite "Christmas" songs. What I mean is to make sure your relatives on the fringe of the family, or who are lower on the socioeconomic scale, are doing fine. Check in on your neighbors as well. Long ago peeps used to gather in feasting halls to take care of themselves and others with cheer in the middle of a dreary time of year for many. The hungry got fed, the lonely had company and elderly shared stories. In lieu of having our own giant feasting hall we can at least pick up a phone and hand over a can of cran-jelly to the single father of 3 next door who just lost his part time job. This should be where your excess food goes, as most people you actually know are too polite to tell you that your taste in clothing is atrocious and no they don't want your old ripped up rock star shorts.
7. Charity, strangers. Go through your house and get rid of all the things you aren't using. Declutter and give it all away. Take three bins with you through the house. One says "Give Away", the other says "Fix" and the last one says "Throw Away". You're required to fill the first one up and take it immediately to the car and drive it immediately to your prefered drop point. I like the Salvation Army, since Goodwill now charges more than retail and I don't support dishonest charities. You have till the next solstice to fix the things in the "Fix" bin or they get moved into the "Throw Away" bin.
8. Feast. Yes, the eating. I'm sure you can figure out how to google recipes and turn on an oven. I also don't need to tell you how to chew and swallow. Since you're not required to invite people over it can be a simple meal of just affordable things you like or you can go all out and invite everyone over to celebrate and have it be a potluck style deal. Most peeps do something in between. My sister and I use the holy days as an excuse to get company out to our house, since we also cook a lot of different foods and want help eating it all. We also take the time off work for before and the day of every holiday in order to have time to do everything. Company just makes it better on Yule because they appreciate the fire, usually bring their own food and booze and there is an increased chance I'll get more yarn for making more socks. I'm all about layer and layers of socks during the winter months!
9. Ritual. I'm sure you already have a type of Yule ritual you like to do. If not then a google search will find you a plethora. I'd recommend a simple ritual if you've never done Yule before. I'd also recommend doing it along if you've never done it before. I've been doing it for years now and I still find other people distracting when I'm trying to call my gods because no one else I could celebrate with even has the same gods as me. Ritual, by the way, does not involve jumping into a circle, saying some words, playing with fire and snuffing out candles. The entire DAY should be ritual, with you making offerings and doing meditations and magic and dance, etc. You get up, ritual purify yourself via shower and then cook breakfast for you and the gods. You do it again at lunch (sans shower, but with ritual purification no less) and again a dinner. You do spells and divination and whatever other activities you decided to do to rededicate yourself to your gods. If, for instance, you were a devotee of Sobek you might spend the day putting together an altar for Him (assuming you don't have one) and welcoming Him into your home.
10. The elderly. Yes, the Crone goddess manifests Herself in every woman and the Elder manifests Himself in every man. Honor them. Call, write and visit your elderly. Make sure they have what they need and get a list of what they aren't getting. Follow through. This is a ritual of honoring the real people in your life who paved the way. Honoring the elder in yourself is also a good idea. If you don't have any elders in your life then perhaps now is a good time to acquire some since so many are left neglected at nursing homes or other such facilities. The elderly aspects of our Gods should be celebrated at this time. For instance, Isis is a grandmother. Yeah, most people don't know that. And She's certainly an elder, seeing how She's thousands of years old. Acknowledging Her elder aspect may make Her feel good that you see Her as a whole woman and not just the parts you might find convenient. A goddess like Hekate, who has a permanent elder aspect, could receive offerings at a crossroads, since this is Her domain.
11. Pregnancy. This concept doesn't just revolve around parenthood but ideas you and others have been pregnant with for a while. This is about emotions you're pregnant with and dealing with them. This is about a situation that is so pregnant with stagnation or rust that it needs some help to be born. Make a list of all the things you'd like to do. This is kind of like your new years resolutions. Make plans for how you are going to accomplish your goals. How to write goals can be found here. This makes you pregnant with hope for the future and allows you to get a clear idea of what you might hope to accomplish over the next several weeks and months. Just to get the ball rolling you should make one of your goals something you can easily accomplish the next day. I'd suggest something like eating all three of your daily meals and not skipping any of them. Celebrate your Gods who are about to be parents. Celebrate Isis and Osiris, who are pregnant with Horus at this time. Do a ritual that will mislead Set in His search for Isis. As Isis' is protected by you in Her time of need then so too might She return the favor when you have your own goals to accomplish.
12. Birth. Choose one of your ideas from the list that is easily accomplished and accomplish it. For the above mentioned example you would simply eat three meals a day. A meal consists of one vegetable, one grain and one fruit or dairy. Anything other than that (in this example) is just a snack or junk food and not a meal at all. Your goal hear is to get focused on giving birth to your goals and allowing them to come forth naturally. The Goddess is also giving birth to the God at this time of the year and should be included in your celebrations. For me I would imagine Isis and all Her helpers giving birth to Horus in a reed marsh and the birth of Horus, who is a sun God, is the light of the sun returning to the world once more. The days, after all, get longer and longer after this and celebrating birth last on the list will tie the death holiday into the lighter half of the year, creating wondrous continuity.
So, those are just some ideas on how to celebrate the 12 days of Yule. Certainly you don't have to do all this or any of this and you can change what you don't like. Heck, even change what you do to suite your tastes!
Salutations,
Sesh
