Winter Solstice Brew 

2 Oranges
(Peeled, not peeled, sliced, chunked or segmented…whatever you prefer!)
1 Cinnamon Sticks
(Omit if you don’t like or are allergic to cinnamon)
1 Star Anise
(Omit if you don’t like or are allergic to star anise)
1/2 Vanilla Bean
(Cut up, slice or scrape as you like)
12 Black Peppercorns
(Add more, less or leave out completely, it’s up to you!)
2 Cups Brandy
(You can use any flavor or brand you like…or any other alcohol that suits you, such as Bourbon for example. If you wish to have a non-alcoholic version i do not have a firm answer for you as i have not personnely tried any, but you could experiment or research options)
Allow to brew 4 to 6 weeks
(You should shake it every couple of days or at least once a week and keep it in a cool dark place while it brews or steeps)
(You can check your brew at 4 weeks and if your happy with the flavor…strain it and enjoy! If your not happy with the flavor, close it back up and check in another 1 to 2 weeks.)
I used 2 cinnamon sticks because I just love cinnamon, but the recipe calls for 1

(While the ingredients may have medicinal properties…it is intended to be an adult beverage you can sip and enjoy on a cold winter night!)

Feel free to experiment and make it your own!

HOLDA, GODDESS OF THE WINTER SOLSTICE

Mother Holda, an ancient Germanic Goddess, has many surviving stories. She is connected in several ways to our contemporary concept of Santa Claus. She was a teacher, a spinner, a wise woman. She was a Fate Goddess, a Protector and Guide of the souls of the dead to their new life in the next world. Even in modern day, when it snows, people say that Mother Holda is shaking out her down comforter.

An old Germanic tradition that survives is the laying out of an offering of a bowl of milk and food for Holda by the hearth fire on the eve of Her festival day, December 25th. The custom evolved to the setting of a place for Mother Holda at the table the meal before the family went to Christmas Mass, leaving her a bowl of milk when the family left the house, then carrying it outside to pour on the ground or leave for the animals after the family returned. This custom seems very close to the leaving of cookies and milk for Santa by the fire, doesn’t it?

Holda is the Queen of Winter in Her Crone aspect. The snow flies as She shakes out Her cape or Her down comforter. Goddess of Prosperity and Generosity, gold coins drop from Her cape when She unfurls it. But She also holds people to standards of hard work and industriousness. She does not brook laziness. Holda, or Frau Holle, travels in the winds with the souls of the dead, mostly children and babies. She can be heard howling with grief as she bears the babies’ souls tenderly to Heaven.

Holda is connected to the 12 days of Christmas because Her festival days beginning on the evening of the 24th of December began a 12 day party that lasted to January 6th, the Festival Day of Her sister Goddess Perchta, the winter hag Goddess. The Catholic Church assimilated both these Solstice festivals in northern Europe as Christmas ending in Epiphany (commemorating the visit of the Magi to the baby Jesus – bringing gifts).

In Her Mother aspect, Holda appears as the body of the World Tree – front half woman, back half tree – who gave birth to humankind. The name Holda, or Holle, is also associated with the holly plant or tree, which has been used for centuries to decorate and protect the home for this season.

This Northern European Goddess Holda (Hulda or Holle) is a Triple Goddess who as Maiden appears as beautiful and stately, flowing blonde hair shimmering and shining like the light of the sun, with a white, or red and white, goosedown cape. She flies through the night sky on the night of December 24th bringing gifts and joy. Her name means, “kind”, “merciful” or “gracious one”. It was She who determined who was “naughty or nice”. She rewarded the industrious and kind with good health and good fortune, and punished the lazy and selfish.

May Holda bless you with much good health and good fortune in these days surrounding the Rebirth of the Sun.

Solstice Bath Tea


Solstice Bath Tea is full of skin-nourishing herbs that also work wonders on soothing the nervous system. A lovely bath blend for folks of all ages right before bed!

1 part Chamomile (Matricaria chamomilla) Flowers

1 part Elder (Sambucus nigra) Flowers

1 part Calendula (Calendula officinalis) Flowers

Optional:
Add 1-2 cups of healing salts to every cup of herbs

Add one or more of the Winter Solstice Flower Essences depending on your need

Mix all the flowers together in a golden blend while singing songs of merriment. Add 1/4 – 1 cup of Solstice Bath Tea to every bath either by adding the flowers directly into the water or wrapped in cheesecloth. Alternatively, you can brew the Bath Tea ahead of time for 20 minutes to a few hours, strain, and then add to your bath water which allows you to access more of the medicinal qualities out of the blend.

The Celtic Traditions of Winter Solstice

In Celtic tradition winter is ruled over by the Holly King, and the Oak King, or Green Man, rules over the summer. In medieval times the Holly King was represented by a boy who walked around the town accompanied by his bride Ivy Girl, teasing and laughing and taunting each other in kind of ritualised courtship. These are the last remaining strands of a tradition going back millennia to where they were once a god and goddess, remembered in the old carol, The Holly and The Ivy’ where ‘the holly wears the crown’.
The Oak and Holly King are two aspects of our ancient god of the sun. Rising and falling he is forever reborn at the winter Solstice, this is an ancient and recurring motif across the world and seen in other sun gods like the Roman Mithras. In Britain, the sun god was known by many names, and can be found in King Arthurs as well as the old Celtic myths about the Mabon, or the “son”. Hounourded by the druids at the winter solstice, who reap his sacred seed the mistletoe with golden sickle, he brings life back to the land.
At the darkest time, try closing your eyes, and look within. In the distance is a tiny pearl of flame. This is the sun within you. As you breathe, the solstice sun grows in power, reaching out its rays, it touches your heart, bringing life, and renewal. May its blessings fill you with light. 

What Happened to Winter Solstice?


1. Early Christians had a soft spot for pagans
It’s a mistake to say that our modern Christmas traditions come directly from pre-Christian paganism, said Ronald Hutton, a historian at Bristol University in the United Kingdom. However, he said, you’d be equally wrong to believe that Christmas is a modern phenomenon. As Christians spread their religion into Europe in the first centuries A.D., they ran into people living by a variety of local and regional religious creeds.

Christian missionaries lumped all of these people together under the umbrella term “pagan,” said Philip Shaw, who researches early Germanic languages and Old English at Leicester University in the U.K. The term is related to the Latin word meaning “field,” Shaw told LiveScience. The lingual link makes sense, he said, because early European Christianity was an urban phenomenon, while paganism persisted longer in rustic areas.

Early Christians wanted to convert pagans, Shaw said, but they were also fascinated by their traditions.

“Christians of that period are quite interested in paganism,” he said. “It’s obviously something they think is a bad thing, but it’s also something they think is worth remembering. It’s what their ancestors did.” [In Photos: Early Christian Rome]

Perhaps that’s why pagan traditions remained even as Christianity took hold. The Christmas tree is a 17th-century German invention, University of Bristol’s Hutton told LiveScience, but it clearly derives from the pagan practice of bringing greenery indoors to decorate in midwinter. The modern Santa Claus is a direct descendent of England’s Father Christmas, who was not originally a gift-giver. However, Father Christmas and his other European variations are modern incarnations of old pagan ideas about spirits who traveled the sky in midwinter, Hutton said.

2. We all want that warm Christmas glow
But why this fixation on partying in midwinter, anyway? According to historians, it’s a natural time for a feast. In an agricultural society, the harvest work is done for the year, and there’s nothing left to be done in the fields.

“It’s a time when you have some time to devote to your religious life,” said Shaw. “But also it’s a period when, frankly, everyone needs cheering up.”

The dark days that culminate with the shortest day of the year ­— the winter solstice — could be lightened with feasts and decorations, Hutton said.

“If you happen to live in a region in which midwinter brings striking darkness and cold and hunger, then the urge to have a celebration at the very heart of it to avoid going mad or falling into deep depression is very, very strong,” he said.

Stephen Nissenbaum, author of the Pulitzer Prize finalist “The Battle for Christmas” (Vintage, 1997), agreed.

“Even now when solstice means not all that much because you can get rid of the darkness with the flick of an electric light switch, even now, it’s a very powerful season,” he told LiveScience.

3. The Church was slow to embrace Christmas
Despite the spread of Christianity, midwinter festivals did not become Christmas for hundreds of years. The Bible gives no reference to when Jesus was born, which wasn’t a problem for early Christians, Nissenbaum said.

Recommended
SCIENCE NEWS
One of the galaxy’s best light shows is about to peak
“It never occurred to them that they needed to celebrate his birthday,” he said.

With no Biblical directive to do so and no mention in the Gospels of the correct date, it wasn’t until the fourth century that church leaders in Rome embraced the holiday. At this time, Nissenbaum said, many people had turned to a belief the Church found heretical: That Jesus had never existed as a man, but as a sort of spiritual entity.

“If you want to show that Jesus was a real human being just like every other human being, not just somebody who appeared like a hologram, then what better way to think of him being born in a normal, humble human way than to celebrate his birth?” Nissenbaum said. [Religious Mysteries: 8 Alleged Relics of Jesus]

Midwinter festivals, with their pagan roots, were already widely celebrated, Nissenbaum said. And the date had a pleasing philosophical fit with festivals celebrating the lengthening days after the winter solstice (which fell on Dec. 21 this year). “O, how wonderfully acted Providence that on that day on which that Sun was born … Christ should be born,” one Cyprian text read.

4. The Puritans hated the holiday
But if the Catholic Church gradually came to embrace Christmas, the Protestant Reformation gave the holiday a good knock on the chin. In the 16th century, Christmas became a casualty of this church schism, with reformist-minded Protestants considering it little better than paganism, Nissenbaum said. This likely had something to do with the “raucous, rowdy and sometimes bawdy fashion” in which Christmas was celebrated, he added.

In England under Oliver Cromwell, Christmas and other saints’ days were banned, and in New England it was illegal to celebrate Christmas for about 25 years in the 1600s, Nissenbaum said. Forget people saying, “Happy holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas,” he said.

“If you want to look at a real ‘War on Christmas,’ you’ve got to look at the Puritans,” he said. “They banned it!”

5. Gifts are a new (and surprisingly controversial) tradition
While gift-giving may seem inextricably tied to Christmas, it used to be that people looked forward to opening presents on New Year’s Day.

“They were a blessing for people to make them feel good as the year ends,” Hutton said. It wasn’t until the Victorian era of the 1800s that gift-giving shifted to Christmas. According to the Royal Collection, Queen Victoria’s children got Christmas Eve gifts in 1850, including a sword and armor. In 1841, Victoria gave her husband, Prince Albert, a miniature portrait of her as a 7-year-old; in 1859, she gave him a book of poetry by Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

All of this gift-giving, along with the secular embrace of Christmas, now has some religious groups steamed, Nissenbaum said. The consumerism of Christmas shopping seems, to some, to contradict the religious goal of celebrating Jesus Christ’s birth. In some ways, Nissenbaum said, excessive spending is the modern equivalent of the revelry and drunkenness that made the Puritans frown.

“There’s always been a push and pull, and it’s taken different forms,” he said. “It might have been alcohol then, and now it’s these glittering toys.”

Celebrating Winter Solstice

In Celtic tradition winter is ruled over by the Holly King, and the Oak King, or Green Man, rules over the summer. In medieval times the Holly King was represented by a boy who walked around the town accompanied by his bride Ivy Girl, teasing and laughing and taunting each other in kind of ritualised courtship. These are the last remaining strands of a tradition going back millennia to where they were once a god and goddess, remembered in the old carol, The Holly and The Ivy’ where ‘the holly wears the crown’.
The Oak and Holly King are two aspects of our ancient god of the sun. Rising and falling he is forever reborn at the winter Solstice, this is an ancient and recurring motif across the world and seen in other sun gods like the Roman Mithras. In Britain, the sun god was known by many names, and can be found in King Arthurs as well as the old Celtic myths about the Mabon, or the “son”. Hounourded by the druids at the winter solstice, who reap his sacred seed the mistletoe with golden sickle, he brings life back to the land.
At the darkest time, try closing your eyes, and look within. In the distance is a tiny pearl of flame. This is the sun within you. As you breathe, the solstice sun grows in power, reaching out its rays, it touches your heart, bringing life, and renewal. May its blessings fill you with light.

The Slavic holiday calendar

The Slavic holiday calendar began on 21st December, with a symbolic victory of light over darkness (the Winter Solstice). The Święto Godowe (Nuptial Holidays), also known as Zimowy Staniasłońc would end on 6th January, and it would pass by filled with song. The joy of increasingly long and warm days was celebrated with songs called kolędy (the Polish equivalent of carols). Good luck was thought to be ensured by visiting friends in a form of ritual procession.

A tree of life was put up inside homes, and this consisted of a sheaf or mistletoe – actual pine Christmas trees did not appear until much later. On the first day of winter the souls of the dead were also remembered – fires were burned in cemeteries in order to warm them up (but also in order to aid the sun in its struggle against darkness), and special feasts called tryzny were held. On that day, the weather for the upcoming year was predicted, along with the future.

With time, the Nuptials were granted a Christian interpretation. Why is it then, that Catholics celebrate Christmas on 25th and not 21st December? Well, in ancient Rome, this date was consecrated to the Sun god (Sol Invictus), of whom Constantine the Great was a follower. It is said that after taking on Christianity, the emperor “baptised” this pagan feast and thus brought together the two religions.

The Legend of the Holly King and the Oak King

In many Celtic-based traditions of neopaganism, there is the enduring legend of the battle between the Oak King and the Holly King. These two mighty rulers fight for supremacy as the Wheel of the Year turns each season. At the Winter Solstice, or Yule, the Oak King conquers the Holly King, and then reigns until Midsummer, or Litha. Once the Summer Solstice arrives, the Holly King returns to do battle with the old king, and defeats him.

In the legends of some belief systems, the dates of these events are shifted; the battle takes place at the Equinoxes, so that the Oak King is at his strongest during Midsummer, or Litha, and the Holly King is dominant during Yule. From a folkloric and agricultural standpoint, this interpretation seems to make more sense.

In some Wiccan traditions, the Oak King and the Holly King are seen as dual aspects of the Horned God. Each of these twin aspects rules for half the year, battles for the favor of the Goddess, and then retires to nurse his wounds for the next six months, until it is time for him to reign once more.

Franco over at WitchVox says that the Oak and Holly Kings represent the light and the darkness throughout the year. At the winter solstice we mark “the rebirth of the Sun or the Oak King. On this day the light is reborn and we celebrate the renewal of the light of the year. Oops!

Are we not forgetting someone? Why do we deck the halls with boughs of Holly? This day is the Holly King’s day – the Dark Lord reigns. He is the god of transformation and one who brings us to birth new ways. Why do you think we make “New Year’s Resolutions”? We want to shed our old ways and give way to the new!”

Often, these two entities are portrayed in familiar ways – the Holly King frequently appears as a woodsy version of Santa Claus. He dresses in red, wears a sprig of holly in his tangled hair, and is sometimes depicted driving a team of eight stags. The Oak King is portrayed as a fertility god, and occasionally appears as the Green Man or other lord of the forest.

HOLLY VS. IVY

The symbolism of the holly and the ivy is something that has appeared for centuries; in particular, their roles as representations of opposite seasons has been recognized for a long time. In Green Groweth the Holly, King Henry VIII of England wrote:

Green groweth the holly, so doth the ivy.

Though winter blasts blow never so high, green groweth the holly.

As the holly groweth green and never changeth hue,

So I am, ever hath been, unto my lady true.

As the holly groweth green with ivy all alone

When flowers cannot be seen and greenwood leaves be gone

Of course, The Holly and the Ivy is one of the best known Christmas carols, which states, “The holly and the ivy, when they are both full grown, of all the trees that are in the wood, the holly bears the crown.”

THE BATTLE OF TWO KINGS IN MYTH AND FOLKLORE

Both Robert Graves and Sir James George Frazer wrote about this battle.

Graves said in his work The White Goddess that the conflict between the Oak and Holly Kings echoes that of a number of other archetypical pairings. For instance, the fights between Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and between Lugh and Balor in Celtic legend, are similar in type, in which one figure must die for the other to triumph.

Frazer wrote, in The Golden Bough, of the killing of the King of the Wood, or the tree spirit. He says, “His life must therefore have been held very precious by his worshippers, and was probably hedged in by a system of elaborate precautions or taboos like those by which, in so many places, the life of the man-god has been guarded against the malignant influence of demons and sorcerers. But we have seen that the very value attached to the life of the man-god necessitates his violent death as the only means of preserving it from the inevitable decay of age.

The same reasoning would apply to the King of the Wood; he, too, had to be killed in order that the divine spirit, incarnate in him, might be transferred in its integrity to his successor. The rule that he held office till a stronger should slay him might be supposed to secure both the preservation of his divine life in full vigour and its transference to a suitable successor as soon as that vigour began to be impaired. For so long as he could maintain his position by the strong hand, it might be inferred that his natural force was not abated; whereas his defeat and death at the hands of another proved that his strength was beginning to fail and that it was time his divine life should be lodged in a less dilapidated tabernacle.”

Ultimately, while these two beings do battle all year long, they are two essential parts of a whole. Despite being enemies, without one, the other would no longer exist.

Beware the Krampus!

If you live in Bavaria or some parts of Germany, you may be very familiar with the scary Christmas creature known as the Krampus. Let’s take a look at the Krampus–and just as importantly, the huge annual celebration in his honor called Krampusnacht.

BEWARE THE KRAMPUS!

The word Krampus means “claw,” and certain Alpine villages have big parties featuring this scary clawed incubus who hangs around with Santa Claus.

The Krampus costume also includes sheepskin, horns, and a switch that the incubus uses to swat children and unsuspecting young ladies. The Krampus’ job is to punish those who have been bad, while Santa rewards the people on his “nice” list.

There’s been a resurgence in interest in Krampus over the past century or so, but it seems as though the custom goes back hundreds of years. Although the exact roots of Krampus aren’t known, anthropologists generally agree that the legend probably derives from some sort of early horned god, who was then assimilated into the Christian devil figure. During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, masked devils began appearing in church plays during traditional winter celebrations. These events, which often had some fairly comedic and ludicrous elements to them, became part of the pre-Christmas fun that takes place each year.

Tanya Basu of National Geographic says, “Krampus’s frightening presence was suppressed for many years—the Catholic Church forbade the raucous celebrations, and fascists in World War II Europe found Krampus despicable because it was considered a creation of the Social Democrats.”

Now, it seems that Krampus has taken on a life of his own–there are Krampus cards and ornaments, books and graphic novels, and even a feature film. Krampus has actually become a pop culture mainstay, which is a bit odd, if you think about it. He appears in a G4 commercial, appearing in the night to shove Christmas carolers out of his way, and has shown up in episodes of Scooby Doo, American Housewife, and Lost Girl.

In a third-season episode of Supernatural, Sam and Dean encounter the Krampus but later learn he’s not real, and the character they’re dealing with is really a Pagan god. In print, Gerald Brom’s novel Krampus: The Yule Lord takes place in the mountains of West Virginia, and the CarnEvil video game includes Krampus as one of the bosses.

CELEBRATING KRAMPUSNACHT

December 5 is the evening on which parts of Germany and Bavaria celebrate Krampusnacht, which is most likely a throwback to a pre-Christian tradition.

While the men parade around dressed as creepy demons, the women get to have some fun too, wearing masks and representing Frau Perchta, a Nordic figure that may have been an aspect of Freyja, the fertility and war goddess. Interestingly, in the Pennsylvania Dutch community, there’s a character called Pelsnickel or Belznickel who is an awful lot like Krampus, so it appears that the tradition migrated across the water when Germans settled in America.

Krampus.com, which calls itself the official home of “Krampus, the holiday devil,” calls Krampus a “dark counterpart of Saint Nicholas, the traditional European gift-bringer who visits on his holy day of December 6th. The bishop-garbed St.

Nicholas rewards good kids with gifts and treats; unlike the archetypal Santa, however, St. Nicholas never punishes naughty children, parceling out this task to a ghastly helper from below.”

Ed Mazza at the Huffington Post says of a Krampus celebration in Czechoslovakia, “The Krampus costumes at the Kaplice parade were quite elaborate. Getty Images reported that they were often made of sheep or goat skin, and had large cowbells attached to the waist.”

KRAMPUS TODAY

Today, Krampus has seen a resurgence in popularity in many places, and he’s even become a bit of an iconic figure in the United States. There are a number of locations that have annual Krampus celebrations. In Columbus, Ohio, the Clintonville neighborhood saw their first Krampus parade in 2015, and organizers have already decided to make it a regular event.

Philadelphia and Seattle also hold Krampus parades during the beginning of December to celebrate this European tradition.

Want to celebrate Krampusnacht yourself? If you can’t find a local festival or parade to attend, hold your own celebration. Invite friends over to put on scary masks, light a big Yule log, and find a way to whack each other with sticks! If you enjoy making masks as an art project, read up on this amazing step-by-step so you can craft your own Krampus for December’s mischief.

Ten Christmas Customs with Pagan Roots

During the winter solstice season, we hear all kinds of cool stuff about candy canes, Santa Claus, reindeer and other traditions. But did you know that many Christmas customs can trace their roots back to Pagan origins? Here are ten little-known bits of trivia about the Yule season that you might be unaware of.

1. Christmas Caroling

The tradition of Christmas caroling actually began as the tradition of wassailing. In centuries past, wassailers went from door to door, singing and drinking to the health of their neighbours. The concept actually harkens back to pre-Christian fertility rites — only in those ceremonies, villagers travelled through their fields and orchards in the middle of winter, singing and shouting to drive away any spirits that might inhibit the growth of future crops. Caroling wasn’t actually done in churches until St. Francis, around the 13th century, thought it might be a nice idea.

2. Kissing Under the Mistletoe

Mistletoe has been around for a long time, and has been considered a magical plant by everyone from the Druids to the Vikings. The ancient Romans honoured the god Saturn, and to keep him happy, fertility rituals took place under the mistletoe. Today, we don’t quite go that far under our mistletoe (at least not usually) but it could explain where the kissing tradition comes from. The Norse Eddas tell of warriors from opposing tribes meeting under mistletoe and laying down their arms, so it’s certainly considered a plant of peace and reconciliation. Also in Norse mythology, mistletoe is associated with Frigga, a goddess of love – who wouldn’t want to smooch under her watchful eye?

3. Gift-Delivering Mythical Beings

Sure, we’ve all heard of Santa Claus, who has his roots in the Dutch Sinterklaas mythology, with a few elements of Odin and Saint Nicholas thrown in for good measure. But how many people have heard of La Befana, the kindly Italian witch who drops off treats for well-behaved children? Or Frau Holle, who gives gifts to women at the time of the winter solstice?

4. Deck Your Halls with Boughs of Green Things

The Romans loved a good party, and Saturnalia was no exception. This holiday, which fell on December 17, was a time to honour the god Saturn, and so homes and hearths were decorated with boughs of greenery – vines, ivy, and the like. The ancient Egyptians didn’t have evergreen trees, but they had palms — and the palm tree was the symbol of resurrection and rebirth. They often brought the fronds into their homes during the time of the winter solstice. This has evolved into the modern tradition of the holiday tree.

5. Hanging Ornaments

Here come those Romans again! At Saturnalia, celebrants often hung metal ornaments outside on trees. Typically, the ornaments represented a god — either Saturn, or the family’s patron deity. The laurel wreath was a popular decoration as well. Early Germanic tribes decorated trees with fruit and candles in honor of Odin for the solstice. You can make your own ornaments to bring the spirit of the season into your life.

6. Fruitcake

The fruitcake has become the stuff of legend, because once a fruitcake is baked, it will seemingly outlive everyone who comes near it. Stories abound of fruitcakes from winters past, magically appearing in the pantry to surprise everyone during the holiday season. What’s interesting about the fruitcake is that it actually has its origins in ancient Egypt. There’s a tale in the culinary world that the Egyptians placed cakes made of fermented fruit and honey on the tombs of their deceased loved ones – and presumably these cakes would last as long as the pyramids themselves. In later centuries, Roman soldiers carried these cakes into battle, made with mashed pomegranates and barley. There are even records of soldiers on Crusades carrying honey-laden fruitcakes into the Holy Land with them.

7. Presents for Everyone!

Today, Christmas is a huge gift-giving bonanza for retailers far and wide. However, that’s a fairly new practice, developed within the last two to three hundred years. Most people who celebrate Christmas associate the practice of gift giving with the Biblical tale of the three wise men who gave gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh to the newborn baby Jesus. However, the tradition can also be traced back to other cultures – the Romans gave gifts between Saturnalia and the Kalends, and during the Middle Ages, French nuns gave gifts of food and clothing to the poor on St. Nicholas’ Eve. Interestingly, up until around the early 1800s, most people exchanged gifts on New Years’ Day – and it was typically just one present, rather than the massive collection of gifts that we’re inundated with each year in today’s society.

8. The Resurrection Theme

Christianity hardly has a monopoly on the theme of resurrection, particularly around the winter holidays. Mithras was an early Roman god of the sun, who was born around the time of the winter solstice and then experienced a resurrection around the spring equinox. The Egyptians honoured Horus, who has a similar story. While this doesn’t mean that the tale of Jesus and his rebirth was stolen from the cult of Mithras or Horus – and in fact, it’s definitely not, if you ask scholars – there are certainly some similarities in the stories, and perhaps some carryover from the earlier Pagan traditions.

9. Christmas Holly

For those who celebrate the spiritual aspects of Christmas, there is significant symbolism in the holly bush. For Christians, the red berries represent the blood of Jesus Christ as he died upon the cross, and the sharp-edged green leaves are associated with his crown of thorns. However, in pre-Christian Pagan cultures, the holly was associated with the god of winter – the Holly King, doing his annual battle with the Oak King. Holly was known as a wood that could drive off evil spirits as well, so it came in very handy during the darker half of the year, when most of the other trees were bare.

10. The Yule Log

Nowadays, when we hear about the Yule log, most people think of a deliciously rich chocolate dessert. But the Yule log has its origins in the cold winters of Norway, on the night of the winter solstice, where it was common to hoist a giant log onto the hearth to celebrate the return of the sun each year. The Norsemen believed that the sun was a giant wheel of fire which rolled away from the earth, and then began rolling back again on the winter solstice.

Deities of the Winter Solstice

While it may be mostly Pagans who celebrate the Yule holiday today, nearly all cultures and faiths have held some sort of winter solstice celebration or festival. Because of the theme of endless birth, life, death, and rebirth, the time of the solstice is often associated with deity and other legendary figures. No matter which path you follow, chances are good that one of your gods or goddesses has a winter solstice connection.

Alcyone (Greek): Alcyone is the Kingfisher goddess. She nests every winter for two weeks, and while she does, the wild seas become calm and peaceful. Alcyone was one of the seven sisters of the Pleiades.

Ameratasu (Japan): In feudal Japan, worshipers celebrated the return of Ameratasu, the sun goddess, who slept in a cold, remote cave. When the the other gods woke her with a loud celebration, she looked out of the cave and saw an image of herself in a mirror. The other gods convinced her to emerge from her seclusion and return sunlight to the universe. According to Mark Cartwright at Ancient History Encyclopedia, “[S]he blocked herself in a cave following an argument with Susanoo when he surprised the goddess with a monstrous flayed horse when she was quietly weaving in her palace with her younger sister Waka-hiru-me. As a consequence of Amaterasu’s disappearance the world was cast in total darkness and evil spirits ran riot over the earth. The gods tried all manner of ways to persuade the peeved goddess to leave the cave. On the advice of Omohi-Kane, cocks were set outside the cave in the hope their crows would make the goddess think that dawn had come.”

Baldur (Norse): Baldur is associated with the legend of the mistletoe. His mother, Frigga, honored Baldur and asked all of nature to promise not to harm him. Unfortunately, in her haste, Frigga overlooked the mistletoe plant, so Loki – the resident trickster – took advantage of the opportunity and fooled Baldur’s blind twin, Hodr, into killing him with a spear made of mistletoe. Baldur was later restored to life.

Bona Dea (Roman): This fertility goddess was worshiped in a secret temple on the Aventine hill in Rome, and only women were permitted to attend her rites. Her annual festival was held early in December. High-ranking women would gather at the house of Rome’s most prominent magistrates, the Pontifex Maximus. While there, the magistrate’s wife led secret rituals at which men were forbidden. It was even prohibited to discuss men or anything masculine at the ritual.

Cailleach Bheur (Celtic): In Scotland, she is also called Beira, the Queen of Winter. She is the hag aspect of the Triple Goddess, and rules the dark days between Samhain and Beltaine. She appears in the late fall, as the earth is dying, and is known as a bringer of storms. She is typically portrayed as a one-eyed old woman with bad teeth and matted hair. Mythologist Joseph Campbell says that in Scotland, she is known as Cailleach Bheur, while along the Irish coast she appears as Cailleach Beare.

Demeter (Greek): Through her daughter, Persephone, Demeter is linked strongly to the changing of the seasons and is often connected to the image of the Dark Mother in winter. When Persephone was abducted by Hades, Demeter’s grief caused the earth to die for six months, until her daughter’s return.

Dionysus (Greek): A festival called Brumalia was held every December in honor of Dionysus and his fermented grape wine. The event proved so popular that the Romans adopted it as well in their celebrations of Bacchus.

Frau Holle (Norse): Frau Holle appears in many different forms in Scandinavian mythology and legend. She is associated with both the evergreen plants of the Yule season, and with snowfall, which is said to be Frau Holle shaking out her feathery mattresses.

Frigga (Norse): Frigga honored her son, Baldur, by asking all of nature not to harm him, but in her haste overlooked the mistletoe plant. Loki fooled Baldur’s blind twin, Hodr, into killing him with a spear made of mistletoe but Odin later restored him to life. As thanks, Frigga declared that mistletoe must be regarded as a plant of love, rather than death.

Hodr (Norse): Hodr, sometimes called Hod, was the twin brother of Baldur, and the Norse god of darkness and winter. He also happened to be blind, and appears a few times in the Norse Skaldic poetry. When he kills his brother, Hodr sets in motion the string of events leading to Ragnarok, the end of the world.

Holly King (British/Celtic): The Holly King is a figure found in British tales and folklore. He is similar to the Green Man, the archetype of the forest. In modern Pagan religion, the Holly King battles the Oak King for supremacy throughout the year. At the winter solstice, the Holly King is defeated.

Horus (Egyptian): Horus was one of the solar deities of the ancient Egyptians. He rose and set every day, and is often associated with Nut, the sky god. Horus later became connected with another sun god, Ra.

La Befana (Italian): This character from Italian folklore is similar to St. Nicholas, in that she flies around delivering candy to well-behaved children in early January. She is depicted as an old woman on a broomstick, wearing a black shawl.

Lord of Misrule (British): The custom of appointing a Lord of Misrule to preside over winter holiday festivities actually has its roots in antiquity, during the Roman week of Saturnalia. Typically, the Lord of Misrule was someone of a lower social status than the homeowner and his guests, which made it acceptable for them to poke fun at him during drunken revelries. In some parts of England, this custom overlapped with the Feast of Fools – with the Lord of Misrule being the Fool. There was often a great deal of feasting and drinking going on, and in many areas, there was a complete reversal of traditional social roles, albeit a temporary one.

Mithras (Roman): Mithras was celebrated as part of a mystery religion in ancient Rome. He was a god of the sun, who was born around the time of the winter solstice and then experienced a resurrection around the spring equinox.

Odin (Norse): In some legends, Odin bestowed gifts at Yuletide upon his people, riding a magical flying horse across the sky. This legend may have combined with that of St. Nicholas to create the modern Santa Claus.

Saturn (Roman): Every December, the Romans threw a week-long celebration of debauchery and fun, called Saturnalia in honor of their agricultural god, Saturn. Roles were reversed, and slaves became the masters, at least temporarily. This is where the tradition of the Lord of Misrule originated.

Spider Woman (Hopi): Soyal is the Hopi festival of the winter solstice. It honours the Spider Woman and the Hawk Maiden, and celebrates the sun’s victory over winter’s darkness.

Yule Decorations

There are so many great ways you can decorate your home for the Yule season. Adapt store-bought Christmas decorations, or make your own Pagan-themed home decor for the season. Here’s how you can put together a Yule log of your own, some fun and simple ornaments, some seasonally-scented potpourri and incense, and more!

If you want to bring the spirit of the Yule season into your home, there are few better ways than by making your own holiday ornaments! Monotheistic religions don’t have a monopoly on winter celebrations, so if you’ve got a tree to decorate, you can make some simple ornaments to help you rejoice in the winter solstice season.

Make salt dough decorations in Pagan friendly shapes like suns, moons, and stars. You can use cinnamon and applesauce to make spell ornaments for healing, prosperity, or love. Want to keep an earth-friendly theme to your Yule decorating? Why not use the elements found in nature as part of your decor? Decorate a pine cone with simple things such as seeds, acorns, feathers, and other found items – all of which are easy to make into ornaments and other decorations. Bend a few chenille stems together to make a simple pipe cleaner pentacle, or fill an empty glass ornament with magical items to create a spell bottle that you can hang right there on your Yule tree!

Christmas Tree

One of the first references to the fir tree in association with the Christmas tree comes from the Alsatian town of Strasbourg in 1604: “On Christmas, they put fir trees in the rooms in Strasbourg, they hang red roses cut from many-colored paper, apples, offerings, gold tinsel, sugar. It is the custom to make a four-cornered frame around it” (Kronfeld 1906, 149).

Today, depending on family tradition, the tree that is taken into the house is festively decorated and is called the jultree, the light tree, the Christmas tree, or the Christ tree. How many are aware that this custom was for a long time reviled by the church? In the folk literature, numerous sources refer to the fact that the custom of cutting and putting up fir or spruce branches or even whole trees—maien or meyen—was despised as a heathen practice, and was explicitly forbidden by the church, and specifically because of its shamanic-pagan past: “Because of the pagan origin, and the depletion of the forest, there were numerous regulations that forbid, or put restrictions on, the cutting down of fir greens throughout the Christmas season” (Vossen 1985, 86). The record ledgers of Schlettstadt indicated that since 1521, the unauthorized cutting of maien had been forbidden, and emphasized the protection of the forest in the face of this “forest damage.” The cutting down of Christmas meyen was forbidden in Freiburg, in the Breisgau, and was punishable by a fine of 10 rappen (Spamer 1937, 71). It was only at the beginning of the eighteenth century (one hundred years after the Strasbourg reference from 1604) that Johan David Gehard suggested tolerating the fir tree “to the degree that there was less idolatry connected with it” (Spamer 1937, 72).

Mothers Night

The darkest night of the year was called mothers’ night, because now the sun god, lover of the goddess, is reborn in the lap of the Earth. With him, the light of life is renewed. It is the moment of quietness, of contemplation. The cosmic tree (shamanic tree, ladder to heaven) sparkles in the starry brightness under which the child of light is born, reveals itself in an inner vision. Fir greens decorate the rooms. They are smudged with mugwort, juniper, and other aromatic, cleansing herbs.

In this night the goddess gives birth in the darkest place on Earth, during the quietest hour, to the reborn sun-child. Human beings acknowledge the wonder of this sacred night in their meditations: They light candles, they burn oak or birch and let it smoke, they let the burning Julblock bonfire smolder; and they hang up the wintermaien—the original Christmas tree. The British Celts decorated their house with holly, mistletoe, and ivy; and on the continent, fir or spruce was used. The ashes of the Julfire were believed to be healing and were put on the fields to bring fertility.

Soon Christmas Comes

Soon Christmas Comes

Melody: Hans Helmut; Lyrics: Karola Wilke

Soon Christmas comes

Now Father Christmas is not far away

Listen, the old man is knocking on the gate.

With his white horse, he is waiting . . .

I am putting hay in front of the house

And Ruprecht, Santa’s helper, is taking the sack out

Ginger nut, little apples, almonds, and currants

All that he gives to the good child . . .

THE CHRISTMAS CALENDAR

The usual dates supplied for the traditional Christmas season start with November 11 and end on February 2. Here is a small survey of the most important dates in the Christmas calendar.

November

11. Martini or St. Martin’s Day

Old start of winter; first slaughter feast after harvest time

25. St. Catherine’s Day

Time to start Christmas baking

30. St. Andrew’s Day and Night

Start of the new church year. Day of fortune-telling for love matches and weather for the coming year. Astrological lucky day.

December

1. Beginning of the Advent season and the Advent calendar. Start of the klaubaufgehens (wood gathering).

4. St. Barbara’s Day

Time to sow the “Barbara wheat.” In Provence, wheat is germinated in a saucer on Saint Barbara’s Day. The higher the wheat grows, the greater the prosperity it foretells. On this day, one creates Barbara’s boughs by bringing in branches of fruit trees and putting them in vases to force them to bloom. When they blossom, one can foretell an individual’s luck in love as well as the quality of the fruit harvest for the next year.

6. St. Nicholas Day

End of klaubaufgehens. St. Nicholas brings presents to the children. Mexico: Houses are decorated with Flor de San Nicolás.

7. “Bad luck day”

8. Mary’s conception

10. Astrological good luck day

11. “Bad luck day”

13. St. Lucy’s Day

Old winter solstice (before the advent of the Gregorian calendar, this was considered the shortest day of the year). Night for driving away ghosts and witches.1 Perchtennacht (blackest night); time to cut the hazel wood rod.

17. Christ Child gun salute2

Start of the Saturnalia in Rome.

19. End of the Roman Saturnalia (pre-Caesarian times)

20. Astrological good luck day

21. St. Thomas Day3

Astronomical winter solstice. Most common beginning of the raw nights and start of the smudging nights during which house, court, and stables are smudged in purification rituals.

22. The sun enters the zodiacal sign of Capricorn

23. End of the Roman Saturnalia. (Saturday takes its name from “Saturn day.”)

24. Holy Night. Night of Christ’s birth; Christ’s night. More modern beginning of the raw nights.

25. First day of Christmas.

Sun day. Winter solstice and rebirth of the sun (sol invictus) in Roman times. Birthday of Mithras, ancient Persian god of light.

26. Second day of Christmas.

Boxing Day. St. Stephen’s Day. Ilex (holly) bushes are carried from village to village.

“The time between the years.” Oracle nights, lot nights.

27. Third day of Christmas.

Fudel (women beat men with life rod branches). St. John’s Day (farmer holiday).

28. Fourth day of Christmas.

The day of the innocent children.

29. Astrological good luck day

31. Sylvester

Turning of the year, named after the holy Pope Sylvester I (ca. 314–335 CE). Night of St. Matthew.

January

1. New Year’s Day

Start of January. January is named after the Roman god Janus.

2. End of the raw nights (in more modern traditions the raw nights end on January 5).

5. The last day of Christmas. The children plunder the Christmas tree.

In the night before January 6, Befana, the Italian Christmas witch or three king fairy, comes down the chimney and fills children’s boots with sweets. To children who were not well behaved during the preceding year, she brings ashes, coal, and garlic.

6. Three Kings Day

Epiphany. Baptism of Christ. Birthday of Dionysus, Greek god of wine, vegetation, and ecstasy. Old change of times.

7. Old St. Valentine’s Day4

February

2. Candlemas

Official end of the Christmas season. Time of light processions (grounded in Celtic Candlemas). Rituals performed for the security and protection of the fertility of the fields.

Winter Solstice Rituals

Rituals are like theatrical plays or operas. With the passage of time, their content is continuously reinterpreted and imbued with contemporary meaning. Rituals are ideal surfaces for projection. They consist of symbols that are interpreted unconsciously or personally. Christmas is such a ritual. The way we celebrate it remains constant; individual approaches and interpretations, on the other hand, are always variable. Christmas is a complex ritual with elements of the tree and forest cults, agricultural rituals, magic customs, applied folk botany, rites of sacrifice, mystery plays, feasts, and all kinds of social exchange. Christmas is also a “feast of love” involving symbolic plants; nearly all the plants of Christmas have a historical association with fertility, love magic, or aphrodisiac effects. Thus, for ages, Christmas plants have provided a safe haven and domain of contemplation on dark and cold midwinter nights, with their blessings and their dangers.

Like

Comment

Share

Symbolic Meaning of Christmas Plants

The symbolic meaning of Christmas plants opens up to us a new perspective on cultures and customs of times long past: the mythical wild hunt of Germanic and Nordic origin, the Julbock and the feast of lights from the north of Scandinavia, the celebration of Saturnalia from the Mediterranean, ancient rituals commemorating the rebirth of the sun, and a tradition of protection against witchcraft from early Christian times (fifteenth and sixteenth centuries). It teaches us about folk perchtenwalks, nighttime processions of people dressed to represent the devil in archaic wooden goat masks and fur coats, and about biblical feasts to honor the birth of the Christ child, the holy three kings, the holy Barbara, and the holy Nicholas.

Winter Solstice Season

Throughout the season runs evidence of a very rich Christmas ethnobotany, with ancient traces we will follow to their roots in this book. During this excursion into the past, we will learn much about Christmas trees and Christmas greens; about Christmas spices, scents, and incense; about protective rituals that have survived until modern times. The mythology of plants leads us to the origins of the culture of shamanism and the sacred botany (hierobotany) of ancient times—into medieval customs involving witches’ magic, the warding off of demons, fertility rites, and rites of sacrifice.

Craft: Distaff Tree

The word distaff means “fiber stick.” Thus, the Old Norse dísir and Old English idises, tutelary spirits who presided over the birth of a child, determined the length, thickness, and overall quality of the thread that was to be that child’s lifespan, just like the fairies in “Sleeping Beauty.”

The most primitive kind of distaff is, indeed, a stick. It should be long enough that the spinner can hold it comfortably between her knees and have the cloud of unspun fibers at eye level, but not so long that she cannot tuck it under her arm if she wants to spin while walking. Any sapling or straight branch with an upward

sweep of twigs on the end will do, such as ash, sycamore, or sassafras. No, you don’t need a spindle; this distaff is for decorative purposes only.

In turn-of-the-last-century Pennsylvania, the poor city dweller’s alternative to a fresh-cut Christmas tree was a branch of sassafras set upright in a stand, its branches covered in cotton batting. You don’t have to use sassafras for this craft, but your branch or sapling should have the same upward sweep of twigs. Strip

your branch of all leaves and any loose bits of bark. Wind each twig tightly around with a strip of cotton batting or unrolled cotton ball so it looks like the tree is covered in snow. Wrap the trunk or central branch as well. When your tree is all wrapped, adorn it with a short string of tiny lights. For a wintry look, I prefer clear or blue lights on a white wire. Set your creation in the window and

call it a distaff, Christmas tree, or queen’s scepter as you like. Because the cotton has not been spun, you will have to undress the twigs before the Spinnstubenfrau comes to inspect your work at Epiphany, but if you like, you can replace the lights on the bare twigs and keep them up until Candlemas.