Ideas for celebrating Yule (and generally exploring the Wheel of the Year)

[CassandraMortmainthe2nd]

I have become increasingly interested in the idea of the Wheel of the Year, and celebrating the quarter days and cross quarter days.

For the last few years I have personally noted the longest night, but done very little to actually celebrate it. I've done a load of Googling looking for ideas, but not come up with much.

So those of you who mark these things... what do you do for Yule? TIA

Ps I know it's a way off, but I want to get organised this year!

Solstice tree with appropriate decorations. Mine has glass fly agaric mushrooms, sun, moon and acorn ornaments etc. Instead of a star/angel/fairy I have a Krampus on top - well why not!

At dusk we light the solstice candle, which remains burning until at least dawn the following morning

We normally have a celebratory meal as well and listen to pathworking that was made by a friend of mine. I can't share our version but this is a shortened form from the BBC radio play upon which ours is based.

Thanks, that gives me a few ideas 🙂

Is a solstice tree different to a Christmas tree?

Only in so far it is put up to celebrate the Solstice not Christmas and is decorated with solstice and pagan symbolism.

We keep the commercial aspect of Christmas for the 25th December as sadly it is completely impossible to avoid in the UK.

Yes it is :-(

It's a shame, I like a lot of things around Christmas but altogether it is too much. I could handle it all until I had kids but with two primary school age kids it takes over from mid November onwards. All of the rest of life seems to be put on hold until January.

This is part of my reason for wanting to celebrate the solstice, a simpler celebration of something that feels very grounded in physical reality. I like the idea of setting aside Christmas for one day in the middle of the chaos.

christian christmas is based on the Roman pagan holiday of Saturnalia. It was an agricultural holiday that began on Dec 17th and ended on the Solstice...Dec 25th! on the old calendar. It celebrated the bounty of the fields and a Golden Age of Saturn where there was peace and plenty.
People had dinner parties, drank a lot, ate a lot, gambled and exchanged small gifts.
Christians tried to stop it but they couldn't so they used it to make Jesus' birth date Dec 25the the solstice for obvious symbolic reason.
I'm a Greco-Roman pagan so I know about all about this, did the research.

Now as for Yule, that's not my wheelhouse but you can bet, a 'christmas' tree on Dec 25th has zero to do with Jesus and everything to do with Germanic pagan practices put on top of Saturnalia.

Not a Pagan time as focuses on the 1600s but if you watch 'Tales From The Green Valley' (available on YouTube) it is a wonderful series for following the wheel of the year. It's the first series of historian Ruth Goodman living as in the 1600s for a year and is very concerned with the seasons, celebrations, harvests etc. I watch it every year in the run up to Christmas and definitely gives me that feeling of being in tune with nature and escaping commercialism!

Ooh thank you both, this gives me a lot to read and watch and think about 😊

I like the sound of this too. Recently similar to you I’ve been marking Ostara and intend to mark Yule. I was going to buy and eat Yule log - but I could do a tree as well.

Ooh yes Yule log will definitely feature!

We get up and walk up to our nearest beacon and watch the sunrise on the shortest day. To celebrate the 'turning of the year' back towards lighter days. I make cacao and we sing carols. Kids love it.
On Samhain we set the table with an extra place for relatives/ pets/ friends who have died and offer them little things: grandma's favourite glass of wine, a chew for the dog etc. Then we share memories of them.

This is my friends shop in Ukraine, they're pagans and make sun ornaments and other things.
Arx Shop
I also just realized The Beatles song Here Comes the Sun is perfect for the solstice.

I try and Sunrise Swim on the morning of yule and then sleep, then from dusk we light a spiral of candles, I like to gather with my friends and we tend to the fire or flame for the evening.

Make pine cone wish cones
Yule log
Keep some of the fire to light the summer solstice fire etc and cycle this around
Spend time journaling
Meditation
Reading books
Seasonal decor
Read folklore

Thank you everyone, there's some lovely ideas here. @slippersandfleece Can I ask what carols you sing? I guess I associate carols with Christmas, and I want to keep the solstice a bit separate. Also what do you do/make with cacao?

There's some ideas here:
https://pagansong.com/chants-for-winter-solstice-rituals/

Cacao is just posh hot choc really. Melt it in a bain marie (sp) and slowly stir in milk. You can add maple syrup, honey etc and even spices. We put it in flasks and carry it to the top of our local high hilltop. Sometimes I string dried orange slices or decorate satsumas with cloves to decorate tree we stand below. And leave as a offering. But I've found over the years that the less pressure I put on myself and family, the better it is. At first I was very concerned with 'making it special' but these days accepted that getting up in the early hours, tramping up a hill by torch light and drinking hot choc by sunrise is enough. It's more about building up a tradition every year and that's more likely to happen if I keep it simple. x

I go on the solstice or as close to it as I can to a local stone circle which is oriented to sunset on the winter solstice so that the sun sets over the flat rock through a dip in the hills. There are quite often pagans around doing their own rituals, or other people just acknowledging the shift back towards the light, but sometimes just me. I like feeling it’s a place that’s been of significance for thousands of years.

Forgot to add I always light a fire when we get back from the walk, either in the lounge or in the fire pit outside. I give myself permission to have a lazy morning and do something nurturing like have a bath etc. Something I wouldn't normally make time for first thing. And if we can't make it work on the day due to other commitment (my DH has to work this year) we pick another date nearby. No pressure about making it all line up perfectly. It has to have some flexibility if it's going to stand the test of time every year.

@BrunetteHarpy @slippersandfleece That all sounds lovely! No stone circles round here but I could find a suitable hill I think.