Celebratory Travels - Yule / Winter Solstice

Hello everyone!

Jointly with the General Support (GS) & the Young People of Color (YPOC) sub communities, please allow me to wish everyone happy holidays and to share our first co-event with you!

Welcome to day one of our Celebratory Travels tour! Today we will be visiting the Yule / Winter Solstice! My name is Anexmos and I will be your tour guide as I take you on a magical holiday journey today!

Yule

On the arrival of the Winter Solstice, Yule is observed. It was celebrated primarily by the Germanic cultures of northern and western Europe. The midpoint of winter was a time to celebrate the rebirth of the sun and the light it would bring to the earth.

Also known as Jul, Yule predates the Christmas holiday by thousands of years. There is some debate as to the origin of the word Yule. Some linguists suggest the word is derived from “Iul”, the Anglo-Saxon word for wheel. This makes a connection to a Celtic calendar, the Wheel of the Year. In the Norse culture, “Jul” refers to the god, Odin. Odin was celebrated during Yule as well.

Yule celebrations included bonfires, decorating with holly, mistletoe and the boughs of evergreen trees, ritual sacrifices, feasts, and gift-giving.

Many Christmas Traditions Borrowed From Yule

Many of the traditions we use at Christmastime today are borrowed from Yule traditions of old. Whether they’re from myths, feasts, folklore, ancient beliefs, oral stories told, or festivals, they’ve been woven into the fabric of our modern-day customs. Do you recognize any Christmas traditions borrowed from Yule?

✧ The midwinter feast usually lasted 12 days.

✧ Vikings would decorate evergreen trees with gifts such as food, carvings, and food for the tree spirits to encourage them to return in the spring.

✧ Mistletoe combined with a mother’s tears resurrected her son, the God of Light and Goodness, in a Viking myth. The Celts believe Mistletoe possessed healing powers as well and would ward off evil spirits.

✧ In Norse tradition, Old Man Winter visited homes to join the festivities. The Viking god, Odin was described as a wanderer with a long white beard and is considered the first Father Christmas.

✧ Viking children would leave their shoes out by the hearth on the eve of the winter solstice with sugar and hay for Odin’s eight-legged horse, Sleipnir.

✧ Children would traipse from house to house with gifts of apples and oranges spiked with cloves and resting in baskets lined with evergreen boughs.

✧ The Yule log was a whole tree meant to be burned for 12 days in the hearth. The Celts believed the sun stood still during the winter solstice. They thought by keeping the Yule log burning for these 12 days encouraged the sun to move, making the days longer. The largest end would be fed into the hearth, wine poured over it, and it would be lit with the remains of the previous year’s Yule log. Everyone would take turns feeding the length of timber into the fire as it burned. Letting it burn out would bring bad luck.

Now it’s your turn! Tell me:

♡ Have you celebrated Yule before?

♡ How do you celebrate your loved ones, if at all?

♡ Are there traditions from your culture(s) that are similar / different from this holiday?

Thank you for exploring Yule with 7 Cups Airlines! Our next travel will be on Dec 4th, and we will be celebrating Kwanzaa! Looking forward to seeing you then!

Tagging GS:

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Tagging YOPC

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Tagging Relationship Support

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