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| Author: Posted: Nov. 17, 2002 | This Page Viewed: 3,840,198 |
Question of the Week: 69 - 12/3/2001 What Are Your Favorite Yule Traditions or Memories? What memories does the season of Yule invoke within you? What was your favorite one? What Yule traditions have been passed down to you and which ones will you hope to pass down in your family? What special celebrations, gift ideas or recipes would you like to share with us? As the Priest and/or Priestess of YOUR home, what energies or magick do you utilize to create your sacred space? Have others felt it when they have entered your home? |
| Reponses: There are 17 responses posted to this question. | Reverse Sort |
| Growing Up As A Kid, My Mom Would Celebrate St. Nicholas Day... | Nov 26th. at 1:01:15 pm EST |
| Cedar Mantis (Gladstone, Oregon US) | Age: 27 - Email |
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Growing up as a kid, my mom would celebrate St. Nicholas Day. I believe it came from Germany and is rarely practiced anymore, only surviving from one generation to the next. It is celebrated on the morning of Dec.6. The night before, you put a clean sock on the end of your bed, and when you wake up, it's full of goodies. Usually nuts, Brachs candies, candy canes, etc. Now I'm a dad for the first time raising a baby boy in a Pagan household and I want this tradition to live on. I have great memories as a kid waking up with a sockfull of candy and wondering why the kids at school didn't have any! As we all know, the return of the Sun is the true reason for the season and we are getting the place deck up with holly and pine. I was toying with the idea of creating a Pagan nativity set but at this point I'm not sure if it can be done. |
| Well, Now That I Have Just Learned That I Will Indeed Be... | Nov 26th. at 12:23:14 pm EST |
| Ciarrai (Somewhere In Middlesex County, New Jersey US) | Age: 34 - Email |
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Well, now that I have just learned that I will indeed be Priestess of my own home, then I guess I will be winging it this year. Starting my own traditions. Thanks for the inspiration, Wren, -- once again! I made a beautiful Christmas presentation in my pre-Pagan/stll married days. But it was all phoney. We didn't live that way everyday. It wasn't real. Time to be real. Time to make it special without having to compete w/ the mother-in-law and Martha Stewart. Time to make it my own. Again, thanks Wren! ***** On a lighter/corny side, my favorite Christmas holiday memory was when my brother would take the porcelein "NOEL" letters and make them spell "LEON." Drove Mom nuts but then she'd crack up laughing. Now, that was really magick to me! I guess I'd better find some porcelein letters to spell LEON...(I broke the L or the E or something when I inherited her old things!) |
| Yule Is Our Family's Time To Offer Our Home And Hearts To... | Nov 26th. at 11:33:48 am EST |
| Katherine Desmond (Weymouth, Massachusetts US) | Age: 39 - Email |
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Yule is our family's time to offer our home and hearts to all we know, and to some we will meet for the first time. We start by cleansing and purifying both our ourselves and the energy of the house, creating a sacred space for feasting, nurturing, love, and healing. We fill the space with a mighty pine, scents, bells, and candles. Using the dried and canned bounty of our herb and vegetable gardens, each dish is made with a touch of magick. Handmade gifts of oils, herbs, vinegars, liquors, potions, preserves, dream pillows and scarves are shared with our guests. We have been celebrating this way for 15 years, and each year, the circle gets bigger, more new friends, more children. We are truly blessed. |
| For Many Years, My Husband And I Have Rizen Befor Dawn On... | Nov 26th. at 8:32:31 am EST |
| Susannah Ravenswing (Winston-Salem, North Carolina US) | Age: 48 - Email |
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For many years, my husband and I have rizen befor dawn on Solstice morning, bundling ourselves into our warmest garb and gathering together our offerings to the newborn sun. In the stillness of the fleeing night, we make the 40-minute drive from our home to Pilot Mountain, a great breast-shaped form which rises out of North Carolina's northwestern foothills.A landmark for the early Scottish, English amd German settlers who made their way westward, Pilot Mountain was also sacred to the Saura Indians who were the original inhabitants of her flanks. We wait quietly in the warm car until the ranger unlocks the gate which guards the entrance to this state park, and make our way to the parking lot near the top of the mountain. The ground is frozen iron hard, often covered with windblown snow and ice, and the gnarled, wind-beated trees around us are pale grays and blacks and purple in the pre-dawn glow. Utterly alone, we carefully make our way up the winding, rocky trail that twists through brittle mountain laurel and over ancient boulders to the bare Little Pinnacle. Here, a great flat rock, enclosed by a stout timber rail and sheer cliffs caps the ridgetop, affording a 360 degree view of the awakening earth. To the east is the Big Pinnacle, the sheer, rocky "nipple" upreared from the mountain breast. We face each other, standing with hands clasped, tasting the clean sweetness in the bitter wind, opening to the total stillness of the morning, and feeling utterly blessed to be present in such a beautiful and holy place. As the glow of coming dawn grows, we light sage and offer it to the directions with our prayers. In a natural hollow in the stones, we place tobacco and cornmeal, and a chunk of ambery copal, to thank the sun for his return. Then, facing east and the great rocky knob, we "sing up the Sun", shivering and fighting for breath. Bit by bit the bright orb appears right at the junction of the vertical side of the Big Pinnacle and the horizon. Slowly the golden disk rises across the dawn until it is captured between the forked branches of a gnarled old pine, like a plate of gold in a slingshot! In joy we shout, "The Sun has returned, the Sun has returned!" and we laugh and kiss and marvel at the great ravens who alweays seem to pick that very moment to rise up from their nests on the craig and call to the morning. Finally, frozen stiff but with warm hearts, we shuffle down the trail and back to the ordinary world, which seems much less ordinary now. Blessed be. |
| My Grandpa Always Got A Huge Tree For Us. Our House Back... | Nov 26th. at 7:28:22 am EST |
| shepsut (columbus, Ohio US) | Age: 31 |
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my grandpa always got a HUGE tree for us. our house back then had 12 foot ceilings, so we had a ten foot tree. it always took up almost the whole living room. some years we had to go in the back door. even now, i try to get as big as a tree as possible, to remember my grandpa, and it's always real. as i hang the lights, and smell the pine, i can hear grumping" that's not right, you're doing it all wrong..." |
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