How I Celebrate Winter Solstice

The Tree, the Feast, and the Traditional Surprises!

Light enters the passage tomb at Newgrange on Winter Soltice

I am often asked about how I celebrate Yule as a contemporary witch. I am happy to share the traditions I love so much—cobbled together, as traditions often are, from a quirky conglomeration of spiritual, historical, personal, aesthetic, and practical inspirations!

For witches who want to stay connected with friends and family of other spiritualities, it can be a challenge to navigate the calendar for this time of year. Because one of our children was born on the Solstice, we preferred early on to celebrate "solstice on Christmas" and keep Dec 21 free so they could have a birthday of their own. This timing encouraged me to incorporate some of my childhood Christmas rituals into the Solstice. The resulting hybrid feels both traditional and fresh--and it has helped me appreciate in a very hands-on way the truth that most Christmas celebrations are pagan in origin to begin with.

Our family season traditionally starts with decorating a tree, which we usually do sometime between Solstice and Christmas Eve. It's decorated mostly with pagan symbols including spirals, stars, moons, homemade suns and applesauce-cinnamon spirals (they last!) created by my kids when they were young, lots of wonderful animals, santas, angels, goddesses, a pickle (finding the pickle is a fun tradition of old northern Europe) mermaids, mardi gras beads, lights, fresh cranberry chains, and a big wooden painted sun on top. At the same time, I make a creche as my mother always used to do. My creche uses some of her materials and a very old family angel, but it is a pagan creche, with animals of all kinds--including fish, birds, and insects-- gathered around a painted wooden sun in the cradle (I didn't consciously remove the human family, but the old plaster ones fell apart, and I haven't replaced them; I love having the sun there, to symbolize the life force in all of us (not to mention the Sun Goddess!—see below).

When all is decorated, we hang our stockings for "Solstice Santa," evoking the original Santa figure who was a shaman drinking psychedelic reindeer piss from reindeer who had eaten magic mushrooms (it's true, look it up!) and "Solstice Goddess," whom I imagine as a version of the horned "Deer Goddess," but who could be any Goddess(es) of one's dreams! (These magical creatures will also sign some of the gifts.) And we leave out a plate with a treat and a refreshing drink for Santa, and carrots for him to bring to the reindeer.

When all is ready for the magical arrival, I recite/read "The Night Before Christmas" about its sacred shamanic visit, just as my father and his father before him used to do (the impact of this annual custom likely inspired many of my ideas about metrical diversity, noniambic meter, and the ritual use and spiritual meaning of rhythms:!). This year I will do the reading on Zoom. (By the way, based on my careful metrical and literary analysis, the author of this poem was NOT Clement Moore—it was Henry Livingston

Finally comes one of our original Solstice traditions: we turn off all the lights in the house and then drum and make all the noise we can in the darkness, to call the sun back and let Her know how much we love Her! (i see the sun as a Goddess now, after reading Patricia Monaghan's amazing book O Mother Sun). (This one is so much fun that we have done it on New Year’s Eve too, to call in the new year,).

The following day we open the stockings first thing; then we have a walk, open gifts, and cook and share a big sun-colored Solstice feast: salmon, yams, other rosy vegetables like beets or carrots or red cabbage, apple cider with cranberry juice, salad with red and yellow peppers and cranberries, cranberry bread, cranberry-pecan pie, and whatever else we cook up--we are always finding new red, orange, and yellow foods!

This year Glen and I are traveling, but these traditions are alive in my heart until our family can be together again. Meanwhile, I would love to hear any of your traditions--and happy happy solstice, dear ones! Your support of this space is a most precious gift —it is so profoundly appreciated!!

Love,

Annie