Yule 2018

It was Yule aka the Winter Solstice on Friday (21st December) and as I mentioned in my Celebrating Yule/Christmas post, I celebrated with a chocolate Yule log. This year's was a Belgian chocolate one from Tesco (think it's new) and was quite nice. Here's a pic:

Celebrating Yule/Christmas

Yule, also known as Midwinter and the Winter Solstice, is nearly here. It's on 21st December (Friday) this year. (The date varies but is always around the 21st). The Winter Solstice is when the North Pole is furthest away from the sun, and the actual time it will happen this year will be around 10.23pm UK time (GMT). To find the time in your country visit this link: https://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/winter-solstice.html


It's the final sabbat of the calendar year, but the 1st/2nd in the Wheel of the Year seasonal cycle. I say 1st and 2nd because while Samhain is the end of the old year, it's also thought to be the start of the new. Some people start with Samhain as the beginning of the Wheel, others start with Yule. I tend to think of Samhain as both really (the last harvest festival of the year but also the start of a new cycle) and list it first. You can read more about it here: http://paganism-wicca.yoexpert.com/sabbats-and-holidays-13108/is-it-true-that-samhain-marks-the-witches-new-year-36057.html

Update 13/12/21: Original link not working, but here is another article: https://www.patheos.com/blogs/teaaddictedwitch/2019/12/yule-pagan-new-year/

And here is an interesting article about how the celebration of New Year varies: https://www.patheos.com/blogs/panmankey/2013/11/happy-pagan-new-year/
 

Note: If you're in the Southern Hemisphere it will soon be Litha aka Midsummer/the Summer Solstice. Here are my Litha celebration ideas posts:

(Also a post about no-yeast dinner rolls): https://livingseasonal.blogspot.com/2017/06/baking-no-yeast-dinner-rolls-and.html

https://livingseasonal.blogspot.com/2018/06/celebrating-litha-summer.html


Last year I did a post about Yule celebration ideas which you can read here: https://livingseasonal.blogspot.com/2017/12/yule-celebration-ideas.html


This year I thought I'd write about celebrating both Yule and Christmas, similar to the Celebrating Beltane/May Day and Samhain/Hallowe'en posts, since I enjoy celebrating both. :)

Winter Round-up + Inspiration

A year ago I wrote a post about getting ready for winter, which you can read here: https://livingseasonal.blogspot.com/2017/12/getting-ready-for-winter.html

Now winter is coming again, and this year I'm going to do a round-up of previous winter posts and share some links with inspiration for the season. :)

Note: If you're in the Southern Hemisphere you might like this post about celebrating Litha/the Summer Solstice and summer: https://livingseasonal.blogspot.com/2018/06/celebrating-litha-summer.html

 

While I find it easy to be inspired by summer (since it's my favourite season and I like hot weather), I find winter a lot harder! I don't like cold weather and winter can be quite dreary. I like autumn because it's a beautiful time of year, but it seems quite brief really. By the end of November most of the trees in my area had lost their leaves and the lovely colours had faded. 

While we're still technically in autumn, if you follow the astronomical definition of winter which is around 21st December (the meteorological one is 1st Dec), it's starting to feel more like winter now. Some parts of the country have had snow. There hasn't been any in my town yet but in my area they had some. The temperature is 12 degrees Celsius (54 F) today though, so warmer. It's supposed to go down to 7 tonight. Next week the coldest during the day will be about 7, so we're not in proper winter weather yet! This past winter seemed quite long with more snow than usual in the UK and I was ready when spring arrived! It will be nice if we get snow again this year/early next year though.