Growing out of Christmas, Growing Into Yule
Time for a seasonal post, though it is late at night and I'm quite silly with sleeplessness.
There aren't too many Pagans I know who were raised Pagans, although that number is gradually increasing. Myself, I was born into a Christian/Catholic Family. One side unaffiliated, the other decidedly Catholic. I'm kindof like that old Irish song, only reversed: "Me mother she was orange and me father he was green".
From an early age, I chose a Catholic identity for myself, and if my parents ever quarreled over which of the Christian paths I should follow, I never knew about it. I got to attend Mass with my Grandmother (who was decidedly more Irish Catholic, or so I had evaluated after long discussions with her on the topic of spirituality), my father, and my uncle. Even better; I got to hang out with some good friends of mine who joined me in the choir. It was probably one of my favorite things; I was always a musical kid and this was true for my church choir years. I was like a musical sponge: church choir, music major, marching band, chorus, and an after school version of a glee club called EKO. Music has always been a core part of my spirituality, and especially around the holidays. Learning a difficult piece of music was always a joy, even if I was not nearly as talented as some of the veritable virtuosos I attended school with. It is undeniably true that as a kid/young adult/etc, Christmas was my favorite holiday. Midnight Mass was the way to go (and prepped me for future vigils of this kind for the future) And then I became estranged from that spirituality, but still cling desperately to whatever semblance of tradition I can.
To be honest, it's quite difficult dealing with lost traditions like this. My Grove doesn't have a choir, we don't have many songs we sing, and efforts to create new ones sometimes get lost in the shuffle. I am slowly collecting all of my favorite Christmas LPs, so that when I decorate my Yule tree I can pretend my family is there (part of growing up, right?) The voices of Nat King Cole, Bing Crosby, Gene Autry, Willie Nelson are indispensable parts of this season. I need to hear them in the air, regardless of what lyrics they're singing about. I need to hear the Harry Simeone Chorale, and Chet Atkins with his sweetly twanging guitar that evokes images of strings of oversized holiday bulbs laying around on the floor like they had been left there since the 50s, all covered in pine. I think, at the time, that whenever I celebrated Christmas I was simply addicted to happiness; both mine and others. Even though I no longer celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, I am still part of a living legacy that is thickly in my blood: I do love my friends and family, and I am responsible for carrying on the tradition of loving hospitality that has been taught to me.
My husband and I have been talking about which traditions are important to us, because neither of us sees any sense in carrying on a tradition that holds no meaning for either of us any longer. So what do you keep?
We agreed that feasting is a must have for both of our traditions, that we must have a Yule tree to decorate, that we would provide hospitality to our friends and family whenever we could, and when we could afford to gift our friends we would do so generously. There are fewer things on earth during this season that give me more joy than making things for my friends and family just for the sake of giving. I have no interest in the over-commercialization of the winter holiday season. It actually makes me ill. I have no love for spreading what I feel are lies or emotional bribes. I am confident that if Bill and I ever do have children (rue the day), we would be able to provide them with grounded traditions that they could carry forward as they wished. We've got the combination of Irish, German, English, Scottish, and Norse ancestry, so that could be a recipe for one hell of a party.
Yule is a truly beautiful season. It can be a little challenging to decorate for, with all the Santas and Rudolphs and Frosty's and whatever else terrifying Christmas icon I come across. I've taken to covering everything with deer or snowy trees and greenery to be done with it. Still, it's an important ritual to mark the center of winter, not that it feels much like winter anymore. I hope that my fellow Pagans who are sharing this difficulty know that they aren't the only ones doing so. I hope that you are able to find that comfortable medium and remember to be patient with your family; they often just want to understand. If you have welcomed them to join you in your celebration and they have declined, this is always a difficult impasse, but not the end of the world. There are a lot of things you can do without igniting the "Who's holiday is it REALLY?" debate. No one likes that person that snidely hops up and goes "Christian holidays have Pagan roots!" Absolutely they do! You don't have to be a jerk about it. Every single one of us is related to Pagans from ancient times. Our family trees didn't just spring up out of the ground after year 1 CE, but that doesn't grant us license to disrespect what good has developed since then. (yeah, there are bad things too. Boo to the bad things.) We're ALL human folks, it's a human holiday that we celebrate for different reasons. In the Northern Hemisphere, we're celebrating the rebirth of the Sun (or Son, if you will), and in the Southern Hemisphere the darker part of the year begins its incline. There's a lot you can do to try to bridge the divide.
Learn stories. Tell them to your family and friends. Start a storytelling tradition. Explain where the Yule tree comes from, where the greenery and the feasting comes from, make crafts with them. Build fires with them. Sing songs with them. Offer to say 'grace' to thank the Earth for her bounty and wish peace and happiness to all the world. Explain what a Julbock is. Bake cookies and cakes. Avoid being too critical of the poor guys in leotards that are performing the Nutcracker. Discuss the Tree of Life as it branches across many faiths. Teach them. Support them in their faith; be patient if they do not immediately reciprocate. Sometimes the best you can hope for is respect rather than agreement. You will find something meaningful in just being near them, especially in knowing that these moments are finite and fleeting. Regardless of who you pray to, traditions are about the people you spend them with. There is a reason it still resonates as a deep honor to be invited into someone else's celebration to experience their traditions; it means you're loved.
While you're all running around ragged hoping for The Perfect Holiday, remember to stop and meditate on the season and it's meaning for you. Remember what's truly important to you. I'll be crafting my fingers off making gifts, stringing popcorn, making bird feeders, hanging ornaments, baking, listening to my records, anxiously awaiting Yule with my Grove family, wondering when I'll see my blood family, maybe mailing cards.
Oh. And of course, I'll be deciding on the most difficult of decorating dilemmas in recent history:
Clear or colored lights on the tree?
There aren't too many Pagans I know who were raised Pagans, although that number is gradually increasing. Myself, I was born into a Christian/Catholic Family. One side unaffiliated, the other decidedly Catholic. I'm kindof like that old Irish song, only reversed: "Me mother she was orange and me father he was green".
From an early age, I chose a Catholic identity for myself, and if my parents ever quarreled over which of the Christian paths I should follow, I never knew about it. I got to attend Mass with my Grandmother (who was decidedly more Irish Catholic, or so I had evaluated after long discussions with her on the topic of spirituality), my father, and my uncle. Even better; I got to hang out with some good friends of mine who joined me in the choir. It was probably one of my favorite things; I was always a musical kid and this was true for my church choir years. I was like a musical sponge: church choir, music major, marching band, chorus, and an after school version of a glee club called EKO. Music has always been a core part of my spirituality, and especially around the holidays. Learning a difficult piece of music was always a joy, even if I was not nearly as talented as some of the veritable virtuosos I attended school with. It is undeniably true that as a kid/young adult/etc, Christmas was my favorite holiday. Midnight Mass was the way to go (and prepped me for future vigils of this kind for the future) And then I became estranged from that spirituality, but still cling desperately to whatever semblance of tradition I can.
To be honest, it's quite difficult dealing with lost traditions like this. My Grove doesn't have a choir, we don't have many songs we sing, and efforts to create new ones sometimes get lost in the shuffle. I am slowly collecting all of my favorite Christmas LPs, so that when I decorate my Yule tree I can pretend my family is there (part of growing up, right?) The voices of Nat King Cole, Bing Crosby, Gene Autry, Willie Nelson are indispensable parts of this season. I need to hear them in the air, regardless of what lyrics they're singing about. I need to hear the Harry Simeone Chorale, and Chet Atkins with his sweetly twanging guitar that evokes images of strings of oversized holiday bulbs laying around on the floor like they had been left there since the 50s, all covered in pine. I think, at the time, that whenever I celebrated Christmas I was simply addicted to happiness; both mine and others. Even though I no longer celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, I am still part of a living legacy that is thickly in my blood: I do love my friends and family, and I am responsible for carrying on the tradition of loving hospitality that has been taught to me.
My husband and I have been talking about which traditions are important to us, because neither of us sees any sense in carrying on a tradition that holds no meaning for either of us any longer. So what do you keep?
We agreed that feasting is a must have for both of our traditions, that we must have a Yule tree to decorate, that we would provide hospitality to our friends and family whenever we could, and when we could afford to gift our friends we would do so generously. There are fewer things on earth during this season that give me more joy than making things for my friends and family just for the sake of giving. I have no interest in the over-commercialization of the winter holiday season. It actually makes me ill. I have no love for spreading what I feel are lies or emotional bribes. I am confident that if Bill and I ever do have children (rue the day), we would be able to provide them with grounded traditions that they could carry forward as they wished. We've got the combination of Irish, German, English, Scottish, and Norse ancestry, so that could be a recipe for one hell of a party.
Yule is a truly beautiful season. It can be a little challenging to decorate for, with all the Santas and Rudolphs and Frosty's and whatever else terrifying Christmas icon I come across. I've taken to covering everything with deer or snowy trees and greenery to be done with it. Still, it's an important ritual to mark the center of winter, not that it feels much like winter anymore. I hope that my fellow Pagans who are sharing this difficulty know that they aren't the only ones doing so. I hope that you are able to find that comfortable medium and remember to be patient with your family; they often just want to understand. If you have welcomed them to join you in your celebration and they have declined, this is always a difficult impasse, but not the end of the world. There are a lot of things you can do without igniting the "Who's holiday is it REALLY?" debate. No one likes that person that snidely hops up and goes "Christian holidays have Pagan roots!" Absolutely they do! You don't have to be a jerk about it. Every single one of us is related to Pagans from ancient times. Our family trees didn't just spring up out of the ground after year 1 CE, but that doesn't grant us license to disrespect what good has developed since then. (yeah, there are bad things too. Boo to the bad things.) We're ALL human folks, it's a human holiday that we celebrate for different reasons. In the Northern Hemisphere, we're celebrating the rebirth of the Sun (or Son, if you will), and in the Southern Hemisphere the darker part of the year begins its incline. There's a lot you can do to try to bridge the divide.
Learn stories. Tell them to your family and friends. Start a storytelling tradition. Explain where the Yule tree comes from, where the greenery and the feasting comes from, make crafts with them. Build fires with them. Sing songs with them. Offer to say 'grace' to thank the Earth for her bounty and wish peace and happiness to all the world. Explain what a Julbock is. Bake cookies and cakes. Avoid being too critical of the poor guys in leotards that are performing the Nutcracker. Discuss the Tree of Life as it branches across many faiths. Teach them. Support them in their faith; be patient if they do not immediately reciprocate. Sometimes the best you can hope for is respect rather than agreement. You will find something meaningful in just being near them, especially in knowing that these moments are finite and fleeting. Regardless of who you pray to, traditions are about the people you spend them with. There is a reason it still resonates as a deep honor to be invited into someone else's celebration to experience their traditions; it means you're loved.
While you're all running around ragged hoping for The Perfect Holiday, remember to stop and meditate on the season and it's meaning for you. Remember what's truly important to you. I'll be crafting my fingers off making gifts, stringing popcorn, making bird feeders, hanging ornaments, baking, listening to my records, anxiously awaiting Yule with my Grove family, wondering when I'll see my blood family, maybe mailing cards.
Oh. And of course, I'll be deciding on the most difficult of decorating dilemmas in recent history:
Clear or colored lights on the tree?
Comments
Post a Comment