Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Quaker Pagan Reflections

Home
Pagan
How to Have a Perfect Yule

How to Have a Perfect Yule

Last updated on: December 10, 2015 at 10:15 pm by Cat Chapin-Bishop

How to Have a Perfect Yule 2015-12-10T22:15:22-04:00 Cat Chapin-Bishop

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

It was twenty-five years ago:

Coming through the door, we stamped snow off our boots and were hit with a wall of noise.

Yule Wreath. 2014.

There must have been fifty people crowding the farmhouse that night. Some were locked in conversation, clustered in twos and threes. Toddlers careened across the room at knee level, and out in the kitchen two guitarists and a drummer hunched over mismatched chairs, their music lost in the general roar.

A wish-net filled with lights and tokens hung over the battered sofa, potluck foods were laid out in heaps, and the wood-stove cranked out needless heat. Hats and boots and mittens steamed in the entryway, friends greeted each other with hugs, and a man I’d never met before pressed lyrics into our hands.

Outside under a dark sky studded with stars, the snow was too cold to make snowballs; inside, everything was laughter, and light, and noise.

We sang the songs, we lit the candles, we called back the sun. At the end of the night, we took home a candle apiece to keep watch for us over the longest night. Peter and I bundled my sleepy daughter into the car and started the long, winding way home in the dark.

It was my first Solstice in Massachusetts, and it was the perfect Yule.

Time passes; ten years later, my daughter was almost grown, and I had become a new teacher, overwhelmed at work and at home:

Solstice Eve, and I am stuck in traffic. It is my job to light the family Need Fire, the fire to carry us through the long night, but the faculty meeting ran long, the days are short, and the sun is setting already. Disaster! I am a terrible Pagan–a terrible wife, and a terrible mother.

Crestfallen, I finally get home in the dark.

Seeing my anguish at “ruining Yule,” my husband and my daughter confer. How can they turn back time, and find a flame that was burning before the sun went down, and is burning still?

The hot water heater has a pilot light, they realize; it may not be glamorous, but it has kept the year’s fire alive! After some rummaging to find the last of the candles, they head down the stairs together. Minutes later, they rise up from the basement triumphantly, to kindle our altar’s flame. And I am in tears.

All my fussing, all my worry, all my trying to Make Yule Happen, and it happened as simply as that. There they were, my family, teaching me, taking care of me. The Light never really goes out. In the time of the Dark, we can rely on each other.

Nothing was ruined–and it was the perfect Yule.

Flash forward another five years:

We were still wobbly, still weak.

Peter and I had been sick–we’d been so sick, with one of those epic strains of flu that left us barely able to toddle to the bathroom and back, over and over again.

“Don’t come,” we’d told his parents.

“Don’t come,” we’d told my daughter and son-in-law.

We were too sick to put up the tree.

We were too sick to wrap up the presents.

We were too sick to make cinnamon buns, or oyster stew, mulled cider or apple pie. We barely had the strength to light our candles on Solstice Eve.

The next day, on the solstice itself, somehow we put up the tree. We perched the sun at the top, and had to lie down and nap.

The next day, we managed the ornaments.

Slowly, gradually, we caught up with some, though not all, of our yearly traditions. (I never did roast that bird.)

By the 26th, we emerged from the house for the first time, blinking against the bright sun on the snow. We drove downtown together, to try on funny hats in the comic book store, and to stagger next door for Chinese food.

We were weak, we were sick, we were tired… and it was the perfect Yule.

Cat and her Mom. Yule, 2013.

Over the years, as my community and my family have grown and changed, our Yule traditions have changed with them. Things that started as short-cuts borne of necessity, like my annual rendezvous with my parents for a gift exchange over lunch, have become new traditions: every year, I look forward to our annual walk on a wintry beach, and our lunch looking over the waves.

Some of our traditions, like celebrating the Solstice only, we’ve compromised along the way. Peter’s aging parents are with us now, and my daughter is all grown up, married into a Jewish family and considering converting, herself. Christians are part of our family, Jews are part of our family, so Christmas is part of our Yule these days, and Hanukkah is part it, too.

Last year, the menorah was lit on our altar, next to our solstice tree. Neither one seemed to mind.

The ancients tracked the seasons with clocks of stone, with megaliths, and they lacked the accuracy of a modern quartz clock. These days, we allow our Yuletide to slump a little, to blend, to make way. We are not perfect, and I am slowly learning not to attempt to be.

I think that maybe I’ve grown up at last, and I finally understand: it isn’t the shape of the tree or the form of traditions that make a solstice perfect.

Families change. Traditions evolve; we craft some that are new, and others we must lay aside. After all, that is what Yule is about: Renewal.

Some things must change… but some are forever the same.

Previous Post

November 20, 2015

Walking through Grief and Loss

Next Post

January 7, 2016 On Nature, Human Ugliness and the Problem of Evil

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Cat's posts Peter's posts Uncategorized

Select a Month March 2017 February 2017 November 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 July 2013 June 2013 March 2013 February 2013 December 2012 November 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 April 2012 February 2012 January 2012 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 July 2000

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz