If you had asked me when I was much younger what my favorite season was I probably would have responded with “summer.” What kid doesn’t love summer? No school! Time with friends, books, and the television! And if my family was going to go on vacation, it was most certainly going to be during the summer.
As I got older my love for summer began to seriously wane. Heat! Bugs! Boredom! And today my wife and I are more likely to go on vacation in the spring or fall than the summer. Living in California where it’s possible to spend at least some time outdoors year-round, my seasonal blahs kick-in every August not January or February. By this time every year I’m sick of the sunlight, the dead grass, and wearing t-shirts instead of hoodies.
I know it’s kind of cliche in Witch-circles today to say “my favorite season is autumn,” so I won’t say that. Besides, it’s not true anyways, my favorite season is not fall, my favorite time of year are The Embers that magical time of year from September-early January. I call this period “the Embers” to be poetic, and because September, November, and December all end with “ember.” October is kind of my outlier here, but “the Bers” just doesn’t sound as romantic. The Embers are also the last third of the year, and typically a very busy part of the calendar.
So what makes this part of the year so much better than the rest? Well, some of it is the sense of urgency that surrounds all of these months. In September people go back to school, harvest from their gardens, and enjoy (perhaps) the first chilly day or night of the year. For people with a crazy football addiction (like me) it’s also kickoff time! There’s just an electricity in the air that is often absent during the rest of the year.
And in Witch-circles September marks the end of coven-hibernation time. Maybe my coven is weird, but the worst attendance we have all year is at Midsummer and Lammas. But come the Autumn Equinox it feels like an alarm sounds and everyone comes rushing back to circle. During the Embers we celebrate the harvest, honor the seriousness of Samhain, and experience the joy of Yule. The rest of the year just can’t match that!
This is the time of year when I can start to tell you how I will be spending every weekend from now until January 6. The social calendar fills up quickly with holidays, parties, and quiet dinners as we celebrate the extended season with friends. As a Witch October through November is a series of rituals and Pagan Pride Days, but my inner-Pagan is also well served by Dickens Fairs, parks full of Christmas Trees, and houses sparkling with lights in December. I love it all, and it all builds on each other.
So many people complain about Christmas Creep as the autumn rolls along, but Halloween creep has become equally real. In certain places Halloween decorations have been out since July, and I just bought my first (and most likely last) box of Count Chocula this year. (The Count, once a staple of the cereal aisle only shows up these days during Halloween-season.) Both kinds of creep are easily ignored if you choose to do so, and both kinds of creep can also be easily embraced.
But there’s another dimension I firmly believe, the holidays of The Embers are all connected in various ways. I have had various friends who truly love Halloween react negatively to this assertion, but by making it I am not suggesting that anyone put up Yuletide decorations on the first of October. The two types of decorations are very different, but what makes it so interesting is that September-December is the one time of year in American society that people actively decorate their homes, and the outside of those homes. We don’t put lights in the windows of the house for the Fourth of July, but we do put lights up for Halloween and Yule.
But it has to do with more than just decorating. Halloween has inherited a lot of traditions that were once more common at other holidays. Kids used to dress up for Thanksgiving and go door to door to businesses in search of treats, and there are still places in the world where people dress up in costumes for Christmas and January 6 (thank you Nova Scotia for your mummers, and Philadelphia for your Mummer’s Parade!). And what is “Trick or Treat” if not a repurposed wassailing custom? The threads are real. And people used to read ghost stories on Christmas, and we don’t do that so much anymore, but we do it for most of the month of October. (The give and take can go both ways!)
From Mabon* to Yule we celebrate food and the harvest even while much of society has forgotten those traditions. The Autumn Equinox is my favorite harvest festival, but Samhain too is a celebration of the harvest, and in many places probably a more apt one depending on how the Wheel turns where you live. And in the United States our nationwide harvest celebration has been moved to the end of November (Thanksgiving), and in Canada it happens in October. Yuletide has always been a harvest celebration in its own way too. Culled herds allowed for a plentiful supply of meat during the Winter months and now fermented grains (beer) and grapes (wine) were a moment for joy and thanks. The ancient Norse Yule was an extended celebration of eating, drinking, and ghost stories, and even today “Christmas Dinner” is a big event for many families in a variety of places.
So four months, kind of oddly connected in a round about way, where some of us sip pumpkin spice coffee, celebrate a lot of holidays, and find joy around every corner. The last third of the year is the best third of the year.
*Sorry if you hate that word, but I’m guessing you knew exactly what sabbat celebration I’m referencing when you read it!
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