Yule: 25th and 26th December, and the Twelve Days
25th December
As everyone knows the 25th is a family festival. We meet to celebrate the Star Child and pass the time in jollity, games and feasting. Presents are given. One of the simplest customs is that the youngest is the first to receive the bounty. Traditional games are played and special foods eaten. Arthur could be said to make a reappearance as Old Father Christmas, the spirit who was much celebrated in Old England before being subsumed into his Dutch/American counterpart, Santa Claus.
Despite the fun and games there is always a strong ritual element to Yule. Even the Yuletide Ghost Story is an acknowledgement that there is a place for the departed spirits beside our fires, and the still popular toast, ‘Absent friends’ brings a note of sadness in the memory, of past friends, and past Yuletides when they were there, for Yule looks backwards as well as forwards, again a reminder that our God has two aspects and is Janus faced. Joy and sorrow therefore mingle in the festivity and can give it the most poignant beauty.
If Yuletide has any duties they are to be sociable, hospitable and generous, both in pocket and, more importantly, in soul. It is too easy for cynics to talk about the secular Christmas, but surely its games, amusements, jollity, feasting, drinking and generosity are no subjects for disdain, rather the reverse. To set aside for a while our mundane cares and to make merry is a noble aim. To ease the hearts of others and spend the time in mirth and good-fellowship is ritual enough at this most magic season: and as we know this goes for Christians as well as pagans.
‘Old customs that good be let no man despise.’
