* To refocus Christmas and New Year holidays on traditional beliefs, give a new
spiritual focus to existing holiday customs and create new traditions that draw on
ancient ways:
* Adorn the home (inside and out) with electric colored lights, sacred herbs, and
colors (such as the Druidic holiday colors of red, green, and white). Because of
the popularity of stars as holiday symbols, the holidays are a good time to display
a pentagram of blue or white lights.
* Place pine cones, holly (in the form of boughs over portals or wreaths), ivy (in the
form of wreaths and garlands), and evergreen (pine, fir, cedar, juniper, etc., in the
form of boughs, wreaths, garlands, and trees) around your home, especially in
areas where socializing takes place. Holly symbolizes the old solar year and
waning sun and promotes protection and good luck. Ivy promotes fidelity, protection,
healing, marriage, victory, honor, and good luck. Evergreen promotes continuity of life,
protection, and prosperity.
* Hang a sprig of mistletoe above a major threshold and leave it there until next Yule
as a charm for good luck throughout the year. Also decorate with mistletoe boughs
and kissing balls to promote peace, prosperity, healing, wellness, fertility, rest, and
protection.
* Have family/household members join together to make or purchase an evergreen
wreath. Include holiday herbs in it and then place it on your front door to bless your home
and symbolize the continuity of life and the wheel of the year.
* If you choose to have a living or a harvested evergreen tree as part of your holiday
decorations, call it a solstice tree and decorate it with earthy symbols.
* Use oak in your celebration in the form of a Yule log, acorns, and wood for sacred
fires to symbolize the new solar year and waxing sun while promoting endurance,
strength, triumph, protection, and good luck. Burn the Yule log in your indoor fireplace or
outdoor fire circle and save a bit to start next year's fire.
* Decorate with wheat grain and straw figures/symbols and bake wheat cookies, cakes,
and breads to promote sustenance, abundance, fertility, and good luck.
* Place Mother Goddess images around your home. You may also want to include one
with a sun child, such as Isis with Horus.
* Decorate your home with images of Santa Claus that reflect his multicultural heritage.
He embodies characteristics of Saturn, Cronos, the Holly King, Father Ice/Grandfather
Frost, Thor, Odin/Wotan, Frey, and the Tomte.
* Strengthen bonds with and convey love to family, friends, and associates. Visit,
entertain, give gifts, have feasts, and send greetings by mail and/or phone. Do this
over several days and nights as was done long ago. Consider those who are and/or
have been important in your life and share appreciation.
* Honor the new solar year with a Solstice Eve ritual. Meditate in darkness and then
welcome the birth of the sun by lighting candles and singing chants and ancient carols.
* Party hearty on New Year's Eve not just to welcome in the new calendar year but also to
welcome the new solar year.
* Contribute to the manifestation of more wellness on Planet Earth:
* Make a pledge to do some form of good works in the new solar year.
* If you are part of a group, take up a collection of food and/or clothing at your Yule
gathering and give what you collected to a social service agency to distribute to the needy.
Donate funds and items to non-profit groups.
* Volunteer time at a social service agency.
* Place sunflower seeds outside for wild birds to feast upon. Put up bird feeders and keep
them filled throughout the winter to supplement their diet.
* Greet the sun at dawn on solstice morning by ringing bells.
* Meditate for world peace. Do magick for a more peaceful planet.
