Merging the Worlds: Yule & Christmas

Ninth Day of Yule

Hello, lovelies,

As the only practicing witch in my family, this is the dicey topic for the holiday. Mind you, I was raised Christian for my whole life basically and just recently – like last few years – realized how much of that feels restricting in celebrating the world around. To be honest, I also can stand the majority of hypocrisy amongst Christians. But we’re not here for a religious soap box from me. I respect everyone’s choice to practice what they chose to do as long as they do not harm others.

Merging the two holidays can be a little hard if you’re trying to celebrate the full 12 days of Yule – like me. Thankfully, Christmas falls in the middle and makes some of the work a tiny bit easier for me.

Essentially the idea is that you don’t have to really have someone else to celebrate with but it makes things easier. Some witches who practice and still celebrate Christmas do rituals on their own separate from their families.

For me, I decorated just as I normally would have for Christmas. With my practice and celebration of Yuletide, I chose to focus more on decorating. So I used a lot of greenery, citrus, red, golds, whites, and so on. It wasn’t too hard to do because I did purchase a lot of it on sale – go me. And since Christmas is based on the pagan practices, it was pretty easy to make it stick and blend.

As far as anyone else was concerned, I sent out Yule cards to those who I knew were accepting and then I have a set of cards for the family that would… More than raise an eyebrow at the Yule card. It’s okay though. I don’t mind to be a little more closed off. It is mostly for my own energies that I do this.

Other little things I did – especially when cooking for mom and me – was focusing on stirring in the good in a clockwise manner and stirring out the bad by stirring counter-clockwise on anything that required it.

How you blend the two is up to you. If your family is accepting, include them in on the rituals if they are agreeable. If they’re not, then you don’t have to talk about it. How big you go is up to you.

Blessed Yuletide,