Blessed Yule

Another year is turning back into light. Despite the bitter cold in the air this morning, it's the morning that reminds me that the sun's strength is again growing. The cycle of nature begins again...

Today is Yule, one of the eight Sabbats on the Pagan calendar. According to most books, it's marked as a "lesser" Sabbat (as is Ostara, Midsummer, and Mabon-- the spring equinox, summer solstice, and autumn equinox). Imbolc, Beltane, Lughnasadh, and Samhain are the major Sabbats by most of these sources. Personally, I don't divide between lesser and greater Sabbats, and I disagree with many of the Pagan resources on what would aptly be declared “major” and “minor.” If anything, the equinoxes and solstices would be major ones—so many cultures around the world have celebrated them throughout the centuries. The “major” and “minor” division simply doesn’t make sense to me.

But unknowingly, Yule does seem to unintentionally take a bit of a backseat for me due to its proximity to the 24th and 25th.

Anyway… Krisztina asked that I talk about my celebration of Yule and the holiday history. Tonight, I’ll work on a history entry. For now, though, I’ll work through the awkwardness of Yule in my household, as it presently sits.

I’m one of the people to whom “Happy Holidays” applies on all levels. Without getting into the recent b.s. “war on Christmas” discussion too much—I celebrate a lot of holidays in December. “Happy Holidays” includes everything from Thanksgiving to New Year’s Day, in my mind. It’s not offensive, nor stripping of any particular holiday, and I really don’t care what form of goodwill someone sends my way. It’s simply acknowledging that there are a ton of them. On the 21st (and ONLY the 21st), I say “Blessed Yule.” Likewise, on the 24th and 25th, I say “Merry Christmas.” Because those are the days to express such greetings, in my eyes. BUT… if someone does wish me good tidings for a specific holiday, I return the wish in kind.

Yule and Christmas are pretty blended in my household as one long holiday. At this point, I really don’t divide between them. This is partly due to culture, and partly due to my admitted apathy toward sitting down for ritual on a regular basis (Pagans can feel guilty about not going to “church,” too, afterall). With such deep-set traditions already in place for Christmas, I admit that I still haven’t quite found my yearly tradition for Yule itself. I have a personal ritual written that I love, but I don’t sit down for it. It’s mostly due to my uncertainty as to where I’d be the next year, so I wasn’t able to really start founding yearly traditions to mark the holidays. For the first four years, for example, I was in college. December 21=final exams. Since then, I’ve usually been so crazy working on Yule (like this year), that other than a short session of prayer in the evening on my own,I just haven’t acknowledged the holiday ON Yule.

Part of it is that, despite loving my written Yule ritual, sitting down for ritual just doesn’t seem to meet my spiritual needs right now. I’m in one of those transitory periods with my faith, where a lot of things that I feel should be important just… aren’t. I know my foundation is still within Paganism, but I’m going down a bit of a foggy path at the moment with faith, and I’m honestly not sure where I’ll be coming from when I enter the next quiet meadow along my Path.

For the past three years, my observation of Yule has simply been put off until Christmas Day, where I’m guaranteed to be off work and can just quietly observe both holidays at the same time (newborn sun/son… to me, it’s the same thing). I don’t particularly like that I do that, honestly—I was annoyed with the two-holiday Christians as a kid, and I see myself slipping into being an eight-holiday Pagan now—a bit of a hypocrite.

I know that many families either celebrate on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. My family has always celebrated both, and Christmas is as much a cultural holiday as it is religious. Christmas Eve is when the extended family all gathers together for a huge meal together, complete with traditional Polish foods and carols at the table after eating. We open presents that night from one another, and whomever is going to Midnight Mass then departs. Christmas Day has always been reserved for the individual family to spend together. It’s much more low-key, but still a busy day with tons of food and celebrations with friends.

Now that I’m distinctly settled (and that still is an odd concept to me!), the Yule traditions can start growing comfortably along with the Christmas ones. I see Christmas continuing to be a day to celebrate with family and my extended family (both through relation and through friendship). For me, that’s always been the most important part of Christmas, and I can’t see myself ever dividing from it. While I love giving and receiving presents, it’s the togetherness that I really love about the Christmas.

I want to develop Yule into a personal day of reflection, much like Samhain has become to me. I’m drawn to the concept of death and rebirth, which Samhain and Yule represent. I’m very drawn to a day of quiet contemplation- desperately needed in the season of craziness that Thanksgiving through New Years Day has now become here in the U.S. I just need to figure out how to arrange it within the holiday season, and start forming the foundation of what will become a tradition.

And ultimately, I really just want to figure out where my Path is leading—or at least find a park bench along it that I can sit on for a while and watch other travelers go by.