As a kid my family did Christmas. Now I don’t mean that
we attended any church service or engaged in religious aspects*. Nope, like
many families, many Contemporary Pagans as well, Santa came in the night, gifts
were shared, and we spent the day with family eating way too much. The manifestation
of Christmas into my adult life is a bit different. We’ve moved all the traditions
around the holiday that we like to Yule.
Some would argue that we are simply stealing back what
was ours, but I don’t think of tradition that way. Tradition is organic. Tradition
can’t be stolen, only spread. These things survive to me as a living way not
because we reconstructed them from some book, which sometimes creates awesome
lore, but because people never stopped doing these various practices. I
recognize the legacy of all those that have engaged in festivities around this
time of year, and I am grateful.
So here we are on Christmas morning and kids everywhere
are destroying a forest worth of wrapping paper, but my kids had their time
digging under the tree looking for just one more with their name on the tag
three days ago. Our family doesn’t do Christmas. No semantics of what came
first or any fight over political correctness. None of that is really important
in the heart of the season and while amusing I think it is dividing, so I don’t
play along. The reason is much simpler.
By the time Christmas arrives for many others, we are
done. Done. From the beginning of the month each day is marked by hanging a
special ornament upon our Yule tree and a candy cane is had. Each day is full
of holiday music and the watching of all the classic movies; the Grinch,
Charlie Brown, etc. Not to mention the commercial bombardment by corporations that began back around Samhain. Yule morning for us is like Christmas morning for others;
full of presents, play, and laughter. The rest of the day is spent with family
culminating into a small family ritual to honor the birth of our Lord and the
labor of our Lady, after which we feast and are merry. So by the time Christmas
rolls around we are content to let others celebrate, feast, and honor the birth
of their Lord. Just as our extended family comes and spends parts of Yule with
us, we will attend the feast they have prepared and invited us to. To us this
is what Christmas is about.
As much of a Christian holiday as Christmas is, and it
is; today isn’t about any of that for us. For us it is about supporting and
participating in the religious lives of our community not as adherents but
loving family who is happy to see family. The spirit of the day that was known
in my childhood has moved to Yule—Yule is now Christmas, not Christmas. Today
is about loving our family of other paths for who they are and giving them
support; they did the same for us three days hence. Christmas for us is a day that shows we
can all be of different paths and yet be upon the same mountain.
For those that celebrate in some form today; enjoy, be
happy, and let the song of eternity sing in your spirit! You are blessed and
have my blessings!
Boidh Se!
-Spanish Moss
“Lost in a thicket bare-foot upon a thorned path.”
*My father and I would attend CoR’s Yule rite, but it
occurred on the solstice.
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