Tuesday, December 21 is the Winter Solstice if you are in the Northern Hemisphere and the reverse in the Southern Hemisphere. On the Winter Solstice, we observe a Germanic holiday that pre-dates the Christmas holiday by thousands of years – YULE. Yule celebrates the wheel of the year with bonfires, decorations of holly, mistletoe, and boughs of evergreen trees (sound like Christmas?). There are also feasts and gift-giving. This is a celebration of the rebirth of the sun and the light that it brings to the Earth (remember from here on it starts to get lighter every day until Summer Solstice in the north).
It is interesting to look at the similarities between Yule and the Christmas traditions:
- The midwinter feast lasts for 12 days
- Vikings decorated evergreen trees with gifts
- Mistletoe was believed to have healing powers (kiss kiss)
- In the Norse tradition, Old Man Winter visited homes to join the festivities. The Viking god, Odin, was described as a wanderer with a long white beard. He is considered the first Father Christmas.
- Viking children left their shoes out by the hearth on the eve of the winter solstice with sugar and hay for Odin’s 8-legged horse, Sleipnir.