Winifred Hodge Rose
Yuletide is a Season, not just a Day
Here I’d like to share some ideas about ways to celebrate Heathen Yuletide, and the first consideration I want to mention is that Yuletide is a season, a ‘tide’ or period of time, more than just one day. The length of time it was celebrated in the past varied in different places and times, but generally extended for more than a day. The custom of the 12 Days of Christmas is a Christian one, but the custom of a multi-day celebration for this solstice time was not a new invention.
Christian ‘Christmas’ itself was not celebrated until centuries after Jesus’ birth, which probably did not occur at this time of year anyway. The official celebration of his birth likely was attached to the time of the winter solstice because of Pagan custom, in particular the Roman Solstice feast of Sol Invictus, the Unconquered Sun. Christmas later accrued many other Pagan customs from Northern Europe.
Some Christians celebrate Advent, with observances during the days and weeks leading up to the birth of Jesus on Christmas eve. Thus, the ‘tide’ relating to Christmas, for some, extends for weeks, from the beginning of Advent in early December, through Christmas day itself, and then for the 12 days of Christmas afterwards, up through Epiphany on January 6th. There are customs, music, services, prayers, etc, that are intended for each of these periods and days.
Heathen Yule-Tide
Should we, as Heathens, do less to celebrate our own Yule-Tide? Especially since many of the customs were adopted from Pagan traditions in the first place? The Old English calendar points us in this direction: the month before Yule was called Ærra-Geola or Before-Yule, then there were the days of Yule, then the following month was called Æftera-Geola, After-Yule. There was a period of two lunar months focused around Yule. The same was true for the summer solstice, Litha, with the months surrounding it called Before / After Litha, with Litha or the Lithe-Days in the middle. These two holy tides drove the wheel of the year.
Modern Heathens are developing some beautiful customs to celebrate an extended Heathen Yuletide. Here, I want to lay out some guiding principles for developing more of our own customs to celebrate the Tide of Yule. I’m just stating these suggested principles here, and will go into more detail further below.
1. There are many benefits to regarding Yule as a multi-day celebration, both religious / spiritual benefits, and social / convenience benefits.
2. I suggest we should regard the Solstice itself as the pivot point, the hub of Yuletide, so that we celebrate the same number of days after the solstice as we celebrate before, rather than celebrate leading up to the solstice, and then falling flat after that.
3. We can regard our customs of celebration as being like a wheel, with the beginning referring forward to the end, and the end referring back to the beginning. The focus is on a circle or a spiral, on continuity and renewal of continuity, on what is good from the past laying foundations for the future, and aspirations for the future grounding themselves in the foundations of the past. In this way we weave our ancient troth into the fabric of the modern world.
4. It makes a great deal of sense to pattern a Heathen Midsummer / Summer Sun-Wending / Litha solstice celebration in the same way as our Yule celebration, moving the wheel of the year along in a balanced ritual manner. I think that among other benefits, this approach offers Heathens who live in the Southern Hemisphere an opportunity to design Heathen Solstice celebrations in a way that works with, rather than against, their own seasons. If Yule and Litha celebrations are similar both in spirit and in execution, then it’s easier to adapt them to the reality of the seasonal changes in the place where we live. Which is one of the vital purposes of Heathen holy tides, anyway: working with the seasons in the place where we live!
What are we celebrating?
These suggested principles lead to the logical question: “what are we actually celebrating at Yule? (and at Litha?)” It is not the birth of a savior. It is not a consumerist frenzy. When we celebrate either of the Solstices, the implication is that we are celebrating the turning of the sun, the Sun-Wending, from a southern to a northern path, from a shorter to a longer day, or vice versa, depending on which solstice it is (summer or winter) and which hemisphere we are in.
That’s all well and good, but what does it really mean to us, personally? Among the time-honored meanings of Yule is the visitation and honoring of the spirits of departed kin and friends, when we set a place for them at our table, reminisce about them during our feasts and sumbles, raise toasts and boasts to them. It’s a time to gather friends and kin together, for the living also to honor each other, reminisce about our lives, think about the past and about the future, plan for the year to come, speak our toasts and boasts, and offer gifts to one another.
Winter Sun-Wending is also a time to turn inward, to attend to our spiritual life that may be neglected during our busy working days. From this deep place of attention, we honor our Holy Ones, our Gods and Goddesses, and well-intentioned wights of other kinds such as wights of home and hearth, of land both wild and tame.
These are some of the traditional meanings of Yuletide, and there may be more meanings for each of us on a personal level. One example is adding traditional customs from your own cultural and ethnic roots, whatever they may be. Our family has lots of those!
It’s easy to see, when we lay out the principles I listed and the traditional associations of the season, that there’s more than enough to keep us busy for a number of days of Yuletide, not just one! Trying to pack it all into one day….it’s no wonder many people feel on the verge of collapse under the pressure, and have very mixed feelings about the Christmas holiday!
I’m telling you this: for Heathens, it does not have to be this way! For us, Yuletide is a short season, a ‘tide’, not just a day. There is time and room in our hearts and thoughts for attending to all of the important events, inner and outer, that coalesce around this season of the year.
Suggestions for Yuletide Celebrations
1. Sunwait. Modern Heathens have recently started a very beautiful custom called the Sunwait, where candles are lit during days leading up to the Solstice itself, and meditations or brief ceremonies accompany the lighting of the candles. For Heathen children, this can be accompanied by stories about our faith, myths, and history. (That’s not a bad practice for adults, too!) Search for “Sunwait” online, for more ideas.
I would suggest a modification of this lovely custom, in accordance with the principles I’ve discussed here. That is: change the timing and duration of the Sunwait so that the Solstice Day itself falls at the midpoint of the Sunwait time, rather than at the end.
For example, depending on how many days you want to do this, Sunwait can begin nine days before the Solstice, then have the Solstice as an interstitial day, and continue for nine days afterwards. Or: begin four nights before the Solstice, Solstice is the fifth night, then four more nights afterwards, for a total of nine nights. It can also be done in threes: three days before, then Solstice, then three days afterwards. Or at a minimum: three days total, one before, one during, one after the Solstice.
Your meditations and ceremonies can reflect these time-periods: the lead-in to Solstice, the day itself, then the leading-forth from the Solstice back to our revitalized life in the world. The lovely name, Sunwait, can apply in both directions. Before Solstice, we are ‘waiting for’ it to arrive, and preparing ourselves for that. After Solstice, we are ‘waiting on’ the Sun and all it symbolizes for us: the Holy Ones, a clarified life and spirit, hope and courage for the future, and more. We are ‘in service to’ the beings, the ideals, the great inner qualities, that the Sun and the Solstice symbolize for us. Not ‘in service’ as a drudge, but ‘in service’ as a dedicant, someone dedicated to what is greater than ourselves, pursuing a path that leads us toward our own greatness.
Runes can be drawn or selected on each of the Sunwait days, to be used for meditation, divination, and seeking direction for the new year to come.
2. Mothers-Night. Anglo-Saxons celebrated Modraniht or Mothers-Night during Yuletide. I like to celebrate it on Solstice Eve, the night of the Sun’s rebirth. I’ve created a ritual and songs for this celebration; at the end of this article you can find the links.
3. Festivities. Many of us have different groups we’d like to celebrate with: family, in-laws, friends, Heathen groups, children’s events. Having an extended holiday season offers opportunities for multiple gatherings, which can be focused appropriately for the nature of each group. Not all of them have to be elaborate, sit-down meals. ‘Open-house’ is a nice custom, where you prepare holiday snacks and tidbits, and let your friends know you’ll be home during a certain time-period. They’re welcome to stop by anytime during that period, and stay for a short or a long time.
This can work long-distance as well, using zoom or another similar app. We’ve started a family tradition of getting together over zoom during this time for an extended-family reunion, so that’s one of our Yule gatherings. We keep the connection open for several hours to accommodate people in different time zones, and family members can drop in and out, joining each other while cooking and eating meals, opening gifts, or just chatting.
Doing something special with the kids or grandkids, or your nephews and nieces, is great, not just a party, but an outing or a favorite activity, the kind of thing you maybe keep putting off at other times of year. Make a point of doing it during Yuletide!
4. Games. Togetherness needn’t just be focused on food. Get together with family, friends and kindreds for games that promote togetherness, which is another long-honored pastime in many traditions around the world. Board games, card games, sports games, children’s games, brain-games like charades, Pictionary and the like—all are great for enjoyment and for celebrating our ties with the others in our life, and can be chosen to suit any age and any level of ability. I’ve developed a process for playing board and card games with my distant grandsons over Skype or zoom, a source of much enjoyment and closeness for us all, and a good way to spend holiday time with the kids, or adults, who are close to our hearts but geographically distant.
Heathens might enjoy learning and playing Hnefetafl—the name itself is a source of delight—which is a traditional game that goes back many centuries into Heathen times. It’s sometimes called Viking chess, though it isn’t really chess. There are some great Hnefetafl game sets available online, with Viking or other traditional figures as the game pieces, and rules of the game are explained. Or another brilliant idea: as a wedding gift, Heathen friends of ours created a set of little square wooden rune staves, the same size as Scrabble pieces, so we could play Runic Scrabble! How about that, for a good Heathen game? The point is: playing games is a great way to celebrate the togetherness that is a hallmark of Yuletide, and was certainly a traditional activity during old Heathen Yule and other celebrations.
5. Meditations and rituals. Yuletide is an ideal time to go inward, to revive and refresh our spiritual life and activities. During Sunwait or on other occasions, we can plan themes that we’d like to pay special attention to during Yuletide. We can create a logical series, where each meditation builds on and extends the previous one, and leads to the next one. The long nights of Yuletide have a special resonance that can be harnessed to energize our meditations and rituals.
6. Along with meditations and rituals, we can pursue divination and spaeworking. These also are time-honored Heathen activities for this season of the year. Rune-casting and other kinds of divination, as well as trance-working and spaecraft, come more easily during these holy nights. (The German word for Christmas is Weihnachten, meaning ‘holy nights.’ Note that this word is plural, not singular: holy nights, not holy night. Another clue to the multi-day nature of Heathen Yule.) New Year’s Eve, included in our Yuletide, is an especially good time for this divination activity in either a solitary or a group setting. There are a great many folkloric customs along these lines that you might enjoy learning about and trying out.
7. Sumble / Sumbel / Symbel. This is the most traditional Heathen custom, and the most powerful, to engage in during Yuletide. While it’s ideal to engage in with other Heathens, it can also be pursued with non-Heathen people who are close to you, with a little modification. People sit together with drinks in hand, alcoholic drinks such as beer, ale, mead, or hard cider, or non-alcoholic drinks. For non-alcoholic, I recommend fresh cider or apple juice (sparkling or non-sparkling), because of the association of apples with our Goddesses and Disir.
The host of the sumble opens with a call to the Deities. Then each person in turn, going around the circle, speaks a toast or boast to one or more Deities of their choice, taking a sip of their drink after speaking. Others may also cry ‘hail’ and sip, after each boast, to demonstrate their participation in what the speaker is sharing. For the second round, the boasts and toasts are addressed to ancestors, heroes, people you admire and wish to honor and thank them for their deeds and their life.
The third and any succeeding rounds can be on any meaningful topic that you want to share with the group, the ancestors, and the Holy Ones. They can include prayers, thanks-giving, boasts of achievement, honoring others who are present or absent, speaking about meaningful events in your life, recitation of poems or songs, or anything else that is meaningful. Sumble can continue as long as the participants want. If alcoholic drinks are used, it is recommended to switch to non-alcoholic drinks partway through the sumble, if it continues past the third round.
Sumble can work over zoom or other long-distance means, each taking turns to speak as they would in person. Sumble can also be done with non-Heathens you are close to, kinfolk or close friends, where you focus not on religious aspects but on meaningful things in your lives that you want to share and celebrate with them, including remembrances of those who have passed. It’s a nice way to openly or subtly show non-Heathens something of the power and meaningfulness of Heathen ceremonies.
8. Gift-Giving. It can be fun to spread out the gift-giving over a number of days, giving people—children especially—something to look forward to over the whole period of Yuletide instead of having the post-Christmas letdown and crash of mood after the orgy of gifts! In our family, we’ve celebrated multiple Christmas traditions for gift-giving: gifts and dinner with the in-laws on Christmas Eve thanks to the custom of my German mother-in-law. Gifts and brunch with the home-family on Christmas Day for the American custom. Then gifts again on New Year’s Eve to go with the Greek Orthodox custom of my children’s paternal line, where St. Basil is the one who brings gifts on his own feast day, Dec. 31. That works great for me, since I can spend Christmas day in town with one grandson, then travel to a different state for St. Basil’s day and New Year with my other grandsons, and get to open gifts with all of them!
It would be fun to develop spread-out gifting customs within our Heathen tradition. Here are a few ideas. If you are doing the Sunwait as I suggested, with half the days before the Solstice and half the days after, then gifts could be given on each of the post-Solstice Sunwait days. What would be nice to do here, is not to have everyone open gifts on the same day. Children can be taught to enjoy giving a gift to a parent or sibling, for example, while learning to wait for their own gift until the next day. This helps change our mindset to recognize “giving” as a source of joy, as well as well as “getting.” Spreading the gifts out can actually help us enjoy and appreciate each one more, rather than the massive dump on one day, which can be overwhelming.
You could also try gift-giving in a pattern of threes: one gift for each person on the Solstice, then another gift for each, three days later, and so forth depending on the number of gifts being given. Or: some gifts given on the Solstice for Heathen custom, then others given on Christmas Day to match our host culture, with perhaps another time added if your own cultural / ethnic heritage has a different custom for this.
9. Songs. Singing together adds a lot of joy to festive events, and no one needs to be a great singer to join in! I’ve written Heathen words that can be sung to familiar Christmas carol tunes, and there are many other Heathen songs to be found by searching the web. The custom of caroling—going around the neighborhood or around a facility such as an elder-home or hospital to sing Christmas carols—builds on an older custom of Wassailing songs. This word comes from Anglo-Saxon waes hal, meaning ‘be well, be hale and healthy.’
In old tradition, fruit trees and domestic animals were wassailed, as well as neighbors, kin and friends. Traditional wassailing included raising a drink to trees and animals after singing to them, then pouring drink on the roots of the trees. Drinks were offered to wassailers by the neighbors and friends they were singing to, much as American children go trick-or-treating on Halloween. Whether we engage in wassailing out-and-about, or simply add a few songs to our festive events, singing together is a fine way to enjoy our bonds with each other! And Heathen songs are there to be found, as well as making up new ones ourselves.
In closing: Use enthusiasm, creativity, inspiration, and a focus on Heathen celebration, to create your own Heathen Yule customs, share them with other Heathens, and work with us all to lay the foundations for new Heathen traditions in today’s world!
Resources
“Celebrating Heathen Yule“: My booklet that includes this essay that you just read, a Blot for Mothers-Night and the beginning of Yule, and words for Heathen carols. Here is the link if you’d like to order this booklet.
Our Troth Vol. 3: ‘Heathen Life’, 3rd edition, by Ben Waggoner and others, has a long chapter full of information about Heathen Yule, along with another chapter on Sumbel, and a great deal more on Heathen customs.
Links for Our Troth vol. 3:
Paperback book: https://www.lulu.com/shop/ben-waggoner/our-troth/paperback/product-r9emm6.html?q=Our+Troth+vol+3+Heathen+Living&page=1&pageSize=4
Mothers-Night Blot and Yule Celebration, with Heathen Yule Songs, is my older booklet with instructions and text for a blot, and words for eight Heathen or Heathen-oriented Yule songs, sung to familiar tunes. Important note: This material is also included in my newer booklet “Celebrating Heathen Yule,” so you may not want to get both booklets. “Celebrating Heathen Yule” includes the essay you’ve just read, as well as the Blot and songs.
Link for this booklet: https://www.lulu.com/shop/winifred-rose/mothers-night-blot-and-yule-celebration/paperback/product-jrzzn2.html?q=Mothers-Night+Blot&page=1&pageSize=4
Mothers-Night and Yule Blot on this website: https://heathensoullore.net/mothers-night-blot-and-yule-celebration/
Words for Yule songs on this website: https://heathensoullore.net/yuletide-songs/
Historical information about Mothers-Night: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C5%8Ddraniht