How I celebrated Yule
Is Jesus really the reason for the season?
The past few years, I’ve been reclaiming the way I celebrate holidays. Ireland was England’s first colony, and Celtic culture, holidays, traditions, and lifeways were violently appropriated and warped to fit the imperial agenda of England and Christianity.
I’m an Irish American who was raised Catholic, but the religion never felt quite real to me. All through my childhood, I was sent to religious education classes once a week after school, where I asked questions and never felt that I received any answers that made sense. I had a hard time understanding how others could be so devout - I was brought up in the same religion, but it all felt like a story I was being told - not anything real. Now, as an adult, I’ve been on a slow learning journey to try and reconnect to the belief system of my ancestors before they were violently colonized and christianized.
They say that much of what we know about European pagan and Celtic traditions has been lost. While that’s certainly true, I don’t agree with the notion that we don’t know anything about it. We only have to look at many of our holy days - “Christian” holidays like Christmas, Easter, and All Saint’s Day/All Soul’s day were actually just pagan holidays that got rebranded. The celebrations never went anywhere - they just got new stories attached to it. It shows how important these holy days were: people changed their entire belief systems, but the celebrations and culture were never abandoned. In this way, we can clearly see that we actually do know about pagan traditions - they weren’t written down, but they have been passed down orally for thousands of years.
So, for the past few years, I’ve been celebrating Yule instead of Christmas. Most of what we associate with Christmas was originally Yule, and served to mark the winter solstice. It’s a time of hope that the days will begin to grow longer, of warmth and life returning to the sleeping earth. With the promise of the growing season coming again, it’s a time to crack into the winter stores and share feasts. It was also a time to celebrate and connect with nature - trees were brought inside the house and illuminated with candles, and offerings and gifts were left outside for nature. Bringing a tree inside the house, hanging mistletoe, gathering family and community together to share feasts, burning Yule logs, and exchanging gifts were all pagan before they were Christmas.
This is why “keep Christ in Christmas” doesn’t make any sense - he didn’t have anything to do with it in the first place.
I consider the 12 days of “Christmas” to begin on the solstice, and I carry the spirit of the season through all 12 days. Here’s what I did to celebrate:
Brought friends together to burn a yule log on the solstice.
We shared food and warm drinks, wrote down our intentions for the year and things we want to let go of, and burned them in the fire.
We made gifts for nature in the form of bird feeders: spread peanut butter on pinecones and rolled them in bird seed, then hung them on trees to provide some sustenance for the birds and squirrels.
I spent time in the woods, cold plunged in the bay, and picked up trash off the beach.
Crafted nature-based gifts to put in stockings like salve, incense, and tinctures.
Brought family together to share food and time.
If you think my Yule celebration looks a lot like Christmas, that’s because it does. Christmas was made to look like Yule on purpose - it was easier to convert all of Europe to Christianity if they got to hang onto their culture and traditions.
Almost nothing we do for Christmas has anything to do with Jesus. So no, sorry - Jesus is not the reason for the season.
Note: I am not a historian, and the way I’m choosing to celebrate isn’t indicative of how other people may be reclaiming Yule. This is what resonates with me from what I’ve learned. Please share in the comments what you did to celebrate Yule!