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Today, December 21, is the Winter Solstice. That mean's a couple of things: today is the shortest day of the year, tonight is the longest night of the year, and today is the first day of Winter. Lots of different cultures celebrate this time of year with some kind of fire ritual.

 

Midwinter Fire Rituals in Ancient Europe

The great solstice fire festivals of ancient Europe lived on during the Twelve Days: Yule Logs, bonfires, torches, and ceremonial candles were all still burned to secure good fortune, fertility for livestock, and bountiful crops in the new year. The smaller household Yule log was usually burned during the Twelve Nights, or for at least a minimum of twelve hours. The wood of the Yule log itself was steeped in special powers: the prior year's ashes were strewn over the fallow fiels during the Twelve Days to ensure the vigor of next year's crops; the number of sparks when the log was stoked predicted the number of  calves, piglets, chicks, etc. in the spring; a piece of the log's charred remnants was saved to protect the house from lightning during thunderstorms - to name just a few beliefs! The charred remnant was finally used to kindle the new log at the beginning of the next Twelve Days.

In some places, a massive candle was burned instead - its light must not go out on its own or the luck of the family would be "blown away." In other areas, bonfires were lit on Twelfth Night and, in simulation of the life-giving power of the sun, villagers ran with blazing torches throughout the fields and orchards to promote a good harvest.

The Yule Log was also important to protect households from Odin's entourage of unearthly creatures, who were feared to roam the earth during the Twelve Nights. It was also a bad omen if the Yule Log burned out before the end of the Twelve Days.

The Yule Log is one of the most deep-rooted and widespread customs still enjoyed today - from the more traditional Yule Logs still burned in families' fireplaces to the buche de noel cake decorated to look just like a log ready for the fire, to the televised burning Yule log broadcast on Christmas for those without a fireplace of their own.

 

Twelve Days Solstice Festivals in the Ancient Near East

The Mesopotamians held an annual festival for the twelve days surrounding the winter solstice to cheer on their sun god as he battled to conquer the monsters of darkness and chaos. The ordinary social distinctions were suspended for the duration of the victory celebrations, and parades and masquerades were held where everyone mingled together. The ancient Persians held a similar solstice celebration with bonfires burning all night to help their god of light and day defeat the evil god of darkness and night.

 

Ancient Slavic Midwinter Rituals

In the lands of the ancient Slavic tribes, both sun gods and sun goddesses were revered. Their winter solstice festivals lasted ten to twelve days and were a time when Slavs honored their departed ancestors with fires to keep them warm and feasts to keep them fed, hoping to elicit their assistance in defeating the dark forces that were overpowering the old sun. Young men dressed in animal costumes (bears and horned animals such as goats and stags) and went about singing and shouting to chase away the evil spirits of winter.

Some last minute Christmas Gift/DIY Gift Ideas will be coming your way from now until Christmas.

Gift idea: Gift cards, and then some

Makes a good gift for: Anyone – good last minute gift

Christmas is fast approaching, and as time runs out sometimes we remember that we totally forgot to get someone something. That feeling has to be one of the worst. And as Christmas gets closer, it can get harder to find certain items, and also just more hectic to go out in to the masses of last minute shoppers.

These ideas don’t have to be just for last-minute gifts, though. A well-planned gift card or other type of gift certificate can go over very well. All of these ideas will also fit in a Twelve Days of Christmas Box, and can be a great way to pack a punch into a little box!


Gift Cards: as I said above, these don’t have to be a last minute thing you pick up at the checkout counter at the grocery store. It seems like pretty much every store has gift cards these days, and so do movie theaters, restaurants and amazon.com.

 

Tomorrow, December 21, is the Winter Solstice. The Winter Solstice is the shortest day of the year, or, if you are a glass half-full kind of person, the longest night of the year. It marks a turning point - towards longer days and moving towards spring. These long-nights, especially those between Christmas and Epiphany were a time of much superstition in olden times.

During the Twelve Nights, old superstitions persisted that even more frightening otherworldly beings also wandered the earth. It was thought best to be safe inside with the door barred during the Twelve Nights and hope that Odin and his cortege of spectral hunters, wolves, and lost souls would quickly pass overhead. 

In other areas (such as enclaves of the Balkans and Slavic lands), fearsome creatures from the underworld - malevolent werewolfe-like goblins who dwelt underground the rest of the year - roamed above ground during these nights. They attempted to enter houses through the chimney. To keep safe, embers were kept burning on the hearth  all night long. The goblins were driven away for another year by the ceremonial "blessing of the waters" on Epiphany.

Fishermen also believed that the sea was not safe during the Twelve Days, so they stayed in port from Christmas Day until the waters of the sea were also blessed in the ceremonies on Epiphany.

 

The Ride of the Valkyries, Arthur Rackham

 

Gift idea: Soap 

Makes a good gift for: Anyone – stocking stuffers, Twelve Days of Christmas gifts

Soap might sound like a crappy Christmas present – akin to getting socks from your grandma (although, for the record, I love getting socks and my mom usually gets me some every year). But soap is one of those things that comes in all shapes and scents, and if you look hard enough (I don’t think I need to plug Etsy again, but if I do, then there you go) you can find soap that is somehow personal for almost anyone. And I doubt I am speaking for myself alone when I say that I don’t buy nice soap for myself – just my standard Dove bar soap for the shower.

Below are some nice soaps I found online, but you by no means have to stick to the internet for soap – check out your local drugstore, Target or even the mall for stores like L’Occitaine, The Body Shop, etc.

Small cherry-blossom scented soap:

Fun Christmas coal-shaped soap:

1.     There’s much more to the Twelve Days of Christmas than the famous carol. The Twelve Days, also known as Christmastide and         Yuletide, are a 12-day season of celebration, gift-giving and relaxing of restrictions that was once as popular as the one-day celebration of Christmas is today.

2.     The Twelve Days come after Christmas Day, not before!  Besides confusing the Twelve Days with a countdown to Christmas, there is also some debate about whether they start on December 25 or 26. The historical evidence best supports December 26 as the First Day of Christmas, and January 6 - Epiphany or Three Kings’ Day - as the Twelfth Day.

3.     In times past, Twelfth Night was the grand finale of the Yuletide season filled with dances, feasts and revels. So why was Twelfth Night celebrated on the evening of January 5th, not the 6th?  This is because in days gone by people considered the evening the start of a new day, not midnight as we do today. Likewise, the first night of the Twelve Days of Christmas is the evening of December 25th.

4.     Why 12 days? Many social historians believe that the timing and duration of the Christmas season are inherited from pre-Christian midwinter festivals that coincided with the Winter Solstice. Early peoples also reckoned time by the moon, and over the course of a year, there is roughly a 12-day difference between the solar and lunar calendars. This 12-day difference was set aside as a special "time out of time", filled with supernatural events and folklore.

5.     In some medieval cultures, the Twelve Nights was a time that evil spirits roamed. Some also believed that immoral men could be transformed into werewolves for the duration of the Twelve Days.

6.     Special food and drink traditions abound during the Twelve Days, beginning with Christmas and continuing at New Year. Twelfth Night has its own traditions: toasting with wassail and special cakes variously called Twelfth Night Cakes, Bean Cakes or Kings' Cakes filled with good luck charms.

7.     Burning the Yule Log throughout the Twelve Days was an ancient custom to protect the home and the family gathered there during this period. The Yule Log tradition still lingers – at least for a few hours – in its annual appearance on cable TV, and in cakes shaped like Yule Logs.

8.     Although Santa Claus is the most well-known dispenser of gifts, there are a number of other mystical gift-bringers around the world who arrive and depart during the Twelve Days. Among them: the Befana, the Babushka, Frau Holle, the mischievous Nordic Yule elves and the Three Kings.

9.     The Twelve Days of Christmas is one of the oldest Christmas carols still sung today. Like other aspects of the Twelve Days, its origin is a matter of debate, but there is strong evidence that it dates to at least the 16th century and is likely even older.

10.  All of the gifts mentioned in the carol really add up – 364 gifts in all! The cost of giving all the gifts in the carol – the so-called Christmas Price Index – exceeded $100,000 for the first time in 2011.

11.  The Twelve Days carol was once a popular party game in the 1700-1800s where making a mistake in the lyrics meant you would have to give up a small token, sweet, or perhaps even a kiss!

12.  The often-repeated tale that the lyrics of the Twelve Days carol were a secret code designed to help Catholics living in Protestant England remember religious doctrine is simply a modern day Christmas myth that lives on in the internet despite having been debunked.