So Yule is coming fast, as is Xmas, but who celebrates what?

Whilst I obviously have no religious links to Xmas it is very difficult to escape completely, given family commitments and everything, but then, should I have to try and escape it anyway?

Whilst it supposedly originates from Christs birth etc, we all know how they liked to copy ancient festivals anyway, and how many that do celebrate xmas are xian anyway?

To me, since I was very young, xmas was always about getting together as a family, exchanging gifts and having fun. Should that stop because you are pagan?

Personally I never send Xmas cards, or have 'xmas' decorations, but I don't shut up completely at the end of december.

As well as yule celebrations, I will give gifts over xmas as I also receive them.

I have a tree, with tasteful non religious decorations, which is up early for yule, as well as decorating the house with holly and mistletoe.

Basically I guess I extend my Yule celebrations.

Does anyone else still celebrate the xmas time of year, even if not celebrating the xian festival?

Well, when I was married my ex was nominally xtian so we did the xtian stuff, but now that I have my own place it's definitely a Pagan household so everything is geared towards Yule. I was able to make a stab at it last year but this is the first year I'll be doing it really properly, and so that means a tree decorated for Yule with "natural" stuff, and I'm lucky enough to be able to get hold of mistletoe, holly and so on locally to decorate with. As well, I blend in the festival of Saturnalia with Yule, and so exchange some presents with my non-pagan but very pagan friendly partner(!) and money (of the chocolate variety) to symbolise prosperity in both pocket and larder for the year ahead! He (non-Pagan partner) didn't have xmas anyway when he was young (his parents were "Wee Free" on the Western Isles) so he's happy to go with the flow and doesn't really bother much anyway.

My parents (especially my mum) are Xtian, so I do the whole xmas thing with them too. It's no big deal - I get to do my own thing, they respect that, and I respect their celebrations too. And it works out well at work, because everyone's quite happy for me to take a few days of at Yule, and I don't mind coming in between Xmas and Hogmanay and letting them get time off to do their thing!

At the end of the day I think it's really more about family and friends and a chance to let "normal" life slide for a bit and just enjoy the fact that you have friends and family to share things with - regardless of religious persuasion.

I'm pretty much the same as Pomona, I have time off around Yule and work after the xmas/new year in between bit.

Luckily my family isn't religious so only celebrate the gift giving bit and none of the religious part.

Holly and mistletoe are pagan themes? I didn't know that! What else?

We don't tend to do the religious apects of christmas at home, so I have no conflict with celebrating christmas. Yule is celebrated more as a pre- Dec 25th opportunity to get together with friends of pagan-persuasion as a lot of my friends go home for xmas and don't get back til New Year.

We have a couple of really sweet nativity sets which we've had since I was a kid so I like having them around. I actually saved one of them from the bin three years back... it's a single piece, about the size of an apple in brightly coloured/painted plastic with lots of glitter. Last year mum bought some felt tree decorations from BHS - Mary with baby Jesus, Joseph, and a donkey. Everytime mum walked past the tree last year she always put on an Irish accent and said "jesus, Mary and Joseph"! Not exactly appropriate religious behaviour!

Christmas has always been about food and telly for my family. The parents were raised Christian but the Sally Army scarred my Dad for life so he's not religious.

I'm thrilled to hear the chocolate coins mean something. Foolish of me to think something didn't lay behind them really. Otherwise, why would anyone think that specifically shaping choc into coins, but only at one time of year, would be the way to go?

Xmas nowadays has very little to to do with the birth of Christ. For most people it's an excuse to get together and overdo the food, drink, etc.

Given the choice I wouldn't bother with it at all, but as the rest of the family are nominal christian it's difficult to ignore. Fortunately, the religious aspects don't really matter to them, so I'll join in the festivities and be grateful that we're all together.

As I'm not religious in any way but love an excuse to party, my mid winter celebrations start around 21 December as I've always felt the winter solstice to be an important time without knowing why, and don't tend to finish until 6 January, when the decorations go away. To me it's a celebration of life and death, and family (cheesey as it sounds), celebrating those who made it this far and remembering those that didn't. I celebrate christmas day with my boyf and we have a lovely time of it exchanging gifts and getting drunk and overdoing the food. He celebrates the solstice with me in the form of feasting, again.

As a kid, christmas was always about Santa rather than Jesus, and being good to deserve presents. It's a rather mercenary attitude, but I think it's served me better than any belief in a virgin birth and the saviour of mankind.

Hear hear!

Yeah Yeah! Gimme pressies!

I see the whole period of Xmas as a time just to rest & have a week from work, it being the only actual week I have off. The only other time I have off would be bank hoilidays & actually haven't been away on holiday since 1986.

I am always pleased to get to Yule, basically because I know it will soon be getting lighter.

I celebrate both - none of my family or real life friends are pagan, so Yule is usually a quiet thing for me - this year, I had some friends over for a yule dinner party, and that was really nice. None of them are pagan, but it was a good evening
*Note: I'm in Australia, so I've had Yule for this year already!

Xmas is very much a time for family and friends, presents, good food and drink, and having a good time It isn't religious for me, but it IS a lot of fun

Hello my name is Xalle and ..... and.... I... I celebrate Xmas!

(we should start a group XPA.. xmas pagans anonymous)

My parents are divorced. (dont need sympathy for that.. was a good divorce and everyone is happier for it!) My brother... is away in Manchester my sisters are 18 and 15 and although we are very close, we dont seem to get to spend an awful lot of time together. Xmas is a day that I love, because I've made it something for me.. selfish as that may be.

Its the ONE day in the year where we all get together as a family, mum, dad, me and the siblings... we eat too much, play stupid games, watch daft films, get a little drunk and inevitably, the four of us (me brother and 2 sisters) end up, lying on two duvets on the floor like a bunch of bananas in front of the tv with mum ushering back and forth bringing us cold turky and stuffing sarnies and hot mince pies with cream! Im not going to apologise for it either.

Its also the one day in the year I let go of all my problems. Its a day when I say "fuck it.. theres nothing I can do about ANYTHING today" and I chill and relax and give thanks for all the good things i DO have.

As for my pagan celebration...I think Im doing it by celebrating the way I do.

For me Christmas is chaos, done for my kids and family.

Yule is my celebration, a peaceful space for myself amid the pre-christmas mayhem, shared with my pagan friends.

yep we do xmas but the emphasis is on the winter aspect not the xtian one. this as alwasy been the case even when growing up. the day was spent gving and recieving prezzies from father christmas.
we eat loads and generaly chill out with friends and family.
this year my kids will be at their dads from xmas eve till boxing day morning and i will be spending the time with my partner and his children, then we swap round, him at my house with my kids for boxing day. so all of us have 2 days of celebrating, eating, drinking and watching musicals on telly, and generally having a great time . this is after all the whole meaning of yule, - to liven up the middle of winter and to look forward to welcoming back the sunlight.

i do hate all the crappy decorations though especially 'baubles' eeeeek so i have a small tree and decorate with natural things, and small wooden toys. (cant stand tinsel either yuuuk!)
i have a lovely wreath for the front door that i made last year, it is green real looking tree banches in a circle with pine cones on and in the middle a twiggy pentacle bought from Wyvale garden centre! it looks like a pentagram, though to anyone else its just xmassy.
i will have loads of mistletoe and holly and pine cones.- i'm going to have a real yule log this year not just a chocolate one.
cant wait i love xmas its just a word to me but the feeling and sentiments is Yule.

my family has always had a huge get-together at xmas, so theres not really any luck escaping it! the rest of my family aren't hugely religious though so its not really a big deal. my mum tends to get cross with me cos she says i don't enter the festive spirit
i have my yule celebration though and just see xmas as an extention of that .... anyway when i was little xmas was all about the pressies anyway

Xalle, your Xmas day sounds wonderful

Last year I geared things towards celebrating Yule proper. In the past I've only ever really done the xmas thing in as much as having a meal, visiting family and giving presents, mainly because it's more convinient with everyone else (even though none of my family are at all xtian). I'm moving into my first place in the New Year and am really aiming to make an effort to make it a Pagan household so will build up to my first Yule in there to be a brilliant one!

At the Rainbow Moot on 21 December we're going to be discussing what Yule means to each of us, and I think this thread has really helped me put into perspective what this time of year is about for me. Anyone who wants to come along is of course welcome.

I am working three 12hr shifts over the xmas period..think I am doing a pretty good job at avoiding it! I figure I may as well cover for those who really want the day off, besides it is all double pay and I want to visit my home country next year and need all the cash I can get

Awww.. thanks Kali, looks like yours insnt all that different!

for some fab and thought provoking articles on yule try www.witchvox.com and type in yule - theres a great archive of articles to browse through

I have mixed feelings about Xmas/Yule. I like to have a tree in with fairy lights and those icicles that look like dripping snot, which we dance around when we turn it on. cards I can take or leave, I like the frieze of cats with circular christmas puddings we have going up the stairs, and the swags of greenery and oranges with cloves stuck in them.

Christmas Day I always find to be an anticlimax. We used to have to spend it with family - I don't know if anyone else agrees but there's something utterly depressing about aged and cantankerous rels wearing paper hats - as if this in itself somehow transforms them from being self-centered old gits into urbane party people. The main thing I dislike about Christmas Day is the the same old script that gets trotted out year after year.

1: We used to make our own entertainment. (after having switched the telly on)

2: Kids today have too much.

3: All we used to get was an apple, an orange, and a penny.

4: Ah, they'll be spending all the monery on drugs! (re: Band Aid or any charity single in the pop charts.)

5: Princess Di - heated argument - She were bloody lovely / Scheming little tart.

6: Freddie Mercury on Xmas TOTP - "The dirty booger! Got what he deserved. (the fact that he'll be remembered long after they've been forgotten, seems not to have penetrated)

7: Xmas Top of the Pops again - It's all black faces nowadays.

8: Queen's Speech. "She looks more like her mother every year. I SAY DOESN'T SHE LOOK LIKE HER MOTHER, OUR VERA? The Queen. Doesn't she look like her mother?

9: In the unlikey event of a half-decent film: ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

10: Wake up for another heated argument about who lived at what address in 1954. Voices raised "It was number 26!
"NO, IT WERE NUMBER 28!"
"Mrs. Wakeman lived at No 26, her Frank had a plate in his head. . ."


I believe there are more domestic murders at Christmas than at any other time of year.

I celebrate Yule quietly, I usually light a fire in the garden or in the fireplace indoors. I don't do parties anyway, so xmas parties/celebratsion are not a problem for me. One year I didn't even go to my parents for xmas day, but realised too late, that it was 'their' day NOT mine. It's meant for family regardless of what they believe, after all it's the only time of year pretty much guaranteed to have most folk off work.

I have a Yule tree, he lives in the garden during the year and comes in at Yule. It is decorated with feathers, berries, pine cones, crystals and one of my smaller witches I send Yule cards and pressies because for many it's the only time of year they will hear from me

for me xmas is about getting together with family/friends and having a good ol knees up. it used to be about being extra good and getting gifts from santa my mum always helped me track things and used thing that would help me learn. I would get a sticker sheet and stickers from the 'fairies' and would get a sticker everytime i brushed my teeth tidyed my room or did something extra special, then this would get taken a few days before xmas and my mum would leave glitter in the grate - i loved it. as i got older my parents dragged me to church - but i dont go anymore i stopped going as soon as i could.

Xmas is also an excuse to spend lots of money on the people you love and have an excuse for it, receive lots and lots of pressies, stuff ourselves silly and listen to cheeeeeeeeeeeeeeesy music

they were little blue drunken Scotsmen?

But seriously, were they?

Are you trying to suggest that Scotland has anything other than drunk blue men? Trust me, I'm yet to find a variation.

Aye, I'm afraid it's all true!!

do they shout Crivens a lot? and steal Ship?

Constantly.

Well I observe the solstice with a ritual (one of my favourites BTW) and also regard it as the end and start points of my year.

I hand out my cards (some say Christmas as they tend to be the best I can find that year - though this year most say yule and some even say solstice ) as close to the solstice as I can, so I can say to people that I am at least doing something public.

I also leave an offering of spirits out over night for the spirits of the house, the level always goes down (no its not me mum) and I suppose it could be evaporation.

I decorate the sitting room with a tree (fake - mum is alergic to real ones) and a few subtle and tasteful big hanging foil thingies.

I exchange gifts - nominally Christmas presents, with my colleagues and a few friends and with me mum on the 25th.

I can't take time off around the solstice itself (unless its on a weekend) as leave is banned in December at work - except for the 3 days tween Xmas and New Year - in which case I have to work 2 of them this year (I finish work 24/12 nominally at 17:00 though hopefully sooner, back in 29/11 for the day, of 30/12 and back 31/12 again hoping to be released early. Then back on the 5/1 as I have to go to hospital on the 4/1) so I make the most of the time I get for Christmas.


Kev - who feels that work this Crimbo is gonna be like dancing the hokey cokey.

My husband is scottish and I was very disappointed to discover he doesn't drink! Fancy that!!!!! Its almost sacriligious! Not to mention the booger doesn't drive either! grrrrr.

I thought of ignoring christmas this year as its always just hubby and myself, and he's non faith and I'm pagan and we don't have kids, but after a while i decide to simply put the tree up for 1st december (it looks lovely!!!!!) and decorate the lounge and kitchen with my usual festive bits (not tinsel hate tinsel!), having friends over 18 and 19th December and we're going to celebrate Yule, have a large dinner, light our candles and pop them in a "yule log" while making a wish (as I don't have a fire place) and obviously consume lots of alcohol! Then eve of 22nd Dec I'll celelbrate yule quietly myself and enjoy a lovely dinner with DH (dear husband). And christmas day has never meant anything religious to us, its just an excuse to buy each other lots of pressies, eat copious amounts of food, bonk for england and generally enjoy each other's company, give loved ones and friends gifts, show our appreciation for their love and support, visit and be visited and generally enjoy not having to be in work!

I do like the idea of taking time off for Yule and working the bit inbetween christmas and new year tho, as that was another reason I decided to keep our "traditional" christmas practices, simply that Yule falls mid week this year and I commute to London so I'm up very early and get home quite late and it makes Yule a little difficult. Next year tho, I'll take a few days off!