Yule is probably my favorite sabbat. Unlike Beltane and Samhain there are never a whole lot of expectations for it, and it can be celebrated in a number of ways. As a ritual writer it offers a whole lot of different tropes that can be exploited. Some of my favorites include: Wassailing, The Lord of Misrule, The Oak King/Holly King, and Secret Befana (Like Secret Santa, but with a Christmas Witch). I’m not particularly invested in two of the other most common tropes: The Return of the Light, and the Solstice Vigil, but both of these are popular with a lot of my friends and I see the appeal. (I’ve always thought that Imbolc was a much better choice for the “return of the light” sabbat, but that’s just me.)
Christmas Witches, alcoholic apple drinks, and Oak Kings don’t share a whole lot of similarities on the outside, but a closer look reveals something else. Nearly all of our most cherished Yuletide traditions share one thing: the idea of hope. Misrule and wassailing were about the hope that one day an inequitable economic system might someday be overturned. Santa Claus and Befana are about hoped for presents, and vigils and Oak Kings all harken back to the return of the light, and the hopeful promise of longer and warmer days up ahead. Even the Christian version of Christmas puts hope as its centerpiece with Jesus offering hope for a better tomorrow (or at least afterlife).
That hope is the major focus of a Midwinter holiday is not surprising. The days are short and often cold, and death* encircles the natural world this time of year. I’m not convinced that all of ancient pagandom looked to the Winter Solstice and saw in it the rebirth of the light, but I am sure that the early Winter holidays were something that people looked forward to because it provided them with a bit of inner light. In addition to the Yule tropes dealing with hope, the secular New Year also offers the same gift. We always like to think that this next year is going to be better than the last and that maybe, somehow, things will improve in the New Year.
I originally wrote this piece back in 2017, and in 2020 I find some of the ideas in it quaint. Who would have ever guessed that things would be so dramatically worse just three years later? My state has closed almost everything down in 2020, even sitting in a backyard, socially distanced with friends, is prohibited until sometime next year. I will not be celebrating Yule with my coven in the traditional sense, and have not celebrated with them since Imbolc. I have not seen many of my best friends and members of my family (chosen or blood) in a year to nine months. More than ever in 2020 we need hope.
My Solstice and Yuletide will be radically different from how they are in a typical year. No visits from Santa at my downtown pub on Christmas Eve. No toasting with my fellow Witches. It’s too late where I am to even exchange presents with friends-households are not allowed to mix with one another. There will be no Yule gatherings, and no parties on New Year’s Eve. Things I generally take for granted will all be denied.
Hope is not always about wishing for a major change in the status quo. It’s often just about clinging to the small pleasures in life, or finding that one ray of sunshine that hints at a better tomorrow. On solstice morning I hope and pray that we’ll get more than one ray of sunshine, we deserve it. Yuletide always brings up pleasant memories, this year I may need those memories to sustain me through the bleak midwinter.
On the weekend of the Solstice my wife and I will Zoom with coven mates, and will desperately try and pretend that all is right with the world. We will light our Yule Log this year and hope for a tomorrow that’s better than today. May you find hope and peace this Yule despite our present circumstances, it’s what Yule celebrations were made for.
*As a Californian though, I’ll fess up to having oranges, limes, lemons, grapefruits, and kumquats all growing on the trees in my backyard. But if it makes you feel better, the cherry tree is most certainly bare.
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