#keep christ out of yule

[nirivenova]

The unfriendly neighborhood religious ghouls are picketing on the street corner.

"Keep Christ in Christmas"

Um...yeah. Christ is in Christmas. If you could read you'd fucking know that. Also, Christmas has nothing to do with Yule, which was appropriated along with its iconography to sweeten the force feeding of the shitty fable. And to this I say,

KEEP CHRIST OUT OF YULE

Thanks for coming to my Ted talk

[berrypass-de-murdler]

2 - 16 Yule Pay For This + clearup post

I apologize for yesterday. I was caught up in a lot of unwanted drama. I'm still trying to get things settled.

One thing I want to make clear though which I think was misunderstood - I am not opposed to spam-reblogging. It doesn't hurt anyone and I wasn't actually part of the post regarding it. It was a misunderstanding, and I did not oblige that post nor did I want to be referenced in it.

On a less serious note

I am very happy to see that the murdle underdogs me and @royalleblue are up on the tag!! <3 I LOV YOU BLUE!!!

DON'T READ THE EPISODES WITHOUT READING THE BOOKS!!

Poor Gico tries to sleep through the morning again. But he’s interrupted (shocker)!

VIOLET: Wake up, sleepyhead! LOGICO: …I thought for sure Christmas would be the last of these ‘holiday parties’...  VIOLET: NOPE! It’s time for Yule! LOGICO: …The fuck is Yule- VIOLET: We’re all gathering to one of my huge mega-mansions in the coldest part of Drakonia! To feel more ‘authentic’.

An episode title that ends in ‘for this’? Surely my precious chonkers must be there!

Why of course, along with the measly Flint and the emotionless Celadon. They’re all standing on the roof, freezing, with a single heater.

LOGICO: Lovely. So… what is Yule. VIOLET: I dunno! Probably just celebrating the cold. LOGICO: But it shouldn’t be cold, it’s almost summer. VIOLET: Not here it’s not! This place is freezing year-round.

The only things around are a stand for ‘drinks’ and empty space, which Violet has dubbed a ‘dance floor’. They all stand around the heater.

VIOLET: This is fun!! Right?? FLINT: Fun. Want to know that word origin… CHALK: …no… LOGICO: WHAT IS YULE?!?

He’s so bored, he falls asleep against the heater and very nearly catches fire. He wakes up to Violet screaming at him.

VIOLET: WAKE UP!!!

Logico sees that the heater is now broken, and there’s also a dead mechanic beside it. Everyone is shivering. Flint has icicles growing on him! 

VIOLET: Okay. Logico, you deal with the murder, everyone else, we’ll warm up better if we move around! CHALK: …or we go home… VIOLET: PARDON? CHALK: NAAAAAAAAAA-

Flint tries some breakdancing moves to ‘break’ the ice. (So many puns in one!) He’s not good.

CELADON: Snowball fight. That’s exercise.

She yeets a snowball from nowhere at the little guy. He ducks, and it explodes in flames when it hits the ground!

FLINT: WHAT THE FUCK? 

Chalk is holding a log, which is suspicious. He’s also eating it, which is… also suspicious, I guess?

LOGICO: The fuck are you doing? CHALK: I don’t know how long she’ll keep me here, and I CAN’T have one of those ‘drinks’ as sustenance!

Celadon monotonously chugs one and then throws up off the edge. Not only is that the most ‘emotion’ she’s ever shown, but that’s the third time someone’s barfed onscreen in just the second book!

Irratino gets a note in the mail from Flint. He has to do some research into Yule, and discovers a vital clue that could save Logico. He tries over and over to radio the island! And he just can’t reach…

Logico uncovers the truth without him.

CHALK: [scream!!!]  LOGICO: You can’t play the victim card now! CELADON: Fucking Christ, Logico. LOGICO: …Alright that was a little tasteless. CHALK: Oh, oh, oh, I hate this cold! So much… but when the mechanic came to fix the heater, he slipped a manuscript into my bag! 

He shows it off. “The Joys of Heater Repair - p.s., publish me plz”

CHALK: NAAAAAAAA! I hate when they do that! Even more than the cold! So I FREAKED OUT!! And I’m sorry… 

Logico snorts in disbelief. But not really.

CHALK: …I should go…

He slowly inches to the stairs, but Violet and the others take a vote. Since he is the only warm-blooded creature there, they agree that he should stay.

CHALK: …Oh. Hooray…

Everyone has to hold onto him for warmth. And it makes him so uncomfortable…

The end!

Mai precious chonkers <3

Warning abalone is in the next episode

The power of Goat Lord compels you!

See you next time murdlers!

[captaingrebelguf]

Yule Tidings

Okey dokey, well I found myself with some time on my hands this weekend unexpectedly. So what else does a few glasses of wine lead to? 🍷

It leads to me slamming out a Christmas story for my ghestie, @copiousloverofcopia. Because she's a delight and she makes my life better. ❤️

🎄 Merry Ghristmas, girlfriend.🎄

------------------------------------------

Sister Alessandra and her and Terzo's brood borrowed from Prime Mover Ren and her series, Tied as One Eternally. Please read it. Multiple times. Or read ANYTHING she makes. It'll warm your dark lil soul. 💜

------------------------------------------

So. A few weeks back, the night before Luciana was born…

...

Terzo’s hands hovered protectively around over his daughter’s as she used a wooden match to light the long, pale candles driven into the oak log. 

“Ben fatto, mia figlia. Brava!” Terzo smiled, blowing out the match before kissing Mena’s cheek. 

The family’s yule log was now lit and seated in front of a frosted window. The glow of the festive stump and their newly-decorated Yule tree illuminated the Papal suite. 

Terzo promised to give his wife a day to herself and he had made good on his word. He woke, fed, and dressed the two kids and whisked them outside on an adventure with Zio ‘Peemo’. They had scavenged the forest to gather foragable materials to decorate an altar. Alessandra tiredly beamed at her family from the couch. Her “quiet” day had consisted of a nap, an overdue date with a few hours of Hulu, and indulging in the many holiday treats Primo was handing off to his dear, exhausted cognata daily. Frank Sinatra droned on in the background. The fireplace crackled and a simmer pot courtesy of Primo was bubbling on the stove; the smell of clove and bergamot wafted through the flat. A plate of frosted cookies remained half eaten on the coffee table. 

Primo suggested frosting cookies as a way to entertain the children to give Alé some much-needed alone time. Copia tagged along once he had gotten wind of cookies being mentioned. He and Terzo had been more than happy to help frost their own versions of cookies. Primo helped his brother’s children decorate trees adorned with pentagrams and demon-esque snowmen. Alessandra was less than amused to find the cookies her husband made specifically for her were just well-endowed gingerbread people with very poorly done corpse paint to resemble his own.

Mena jumped up onto the couch and threw her arms around her mom’s neck. Dante yawned as he snuggled closer to his mother; the excitement of the day beginning to wear on the interim youngest Emeritus. Mena sunk down to be at eye level with Alé’s bump.

“Okay, Luci, we have everything decorated for you. So we’re ready for you now!” Mena pleaded with her unborn sibling.

“Sadly, it doesn’t quite work that way,” Alessandra lamented giving her stomach a gentle rub, pulling her oldest daughter in for a hug.

“Well, she’ll be here sooner or later,” Terzo chimed in, pouring himself a refill of the leftover vin brulé he had pilfered from Primo’s quarters. Terzo sipped on his drink before turning back to his family, “Or else she’s going to share a birthday with a certain leper-groping, carpenter hippie.”

“Uh, we’re getting into overtime as it is here,” Alessandra interrupted, “She better be out well before the 25th…”

“I mean, Alé, unless you could try to keep her in until the, eh, 25th? We could use her as an anti-Christ figure against the Church!” Terzo rambled on. Alé shook her head, refusing to participate in her husband’s chaos.

“Luci is not going to be the anti-Christ,” Mena stated matter of factly. Alé’s eyebrows shot up as she turned to look at their oldest.

Terzo paused and raised his eyebrow at his daughter. He hesitated, but he had to know, “What makes you say that, topolina?”

Mena coyly smiled at her father and buried her face into his mother’s side, becoming bashful all of a sudden. Terzo’s expression pulled into a frown as he shook his head at his daughter, muttering to himself, “Stregallina pazza..”

“It’s getting pretty late, little ones,” Alé pointed out, kissing the top of her daughter’s head, motioning to the clock above the fireplace. Alé leaned back and peered over to Dante. The young boy had been watching the candle flames bounce from the adorned yule log, but as soon as he caught his mother’s gaze, he clamped his eyelids shut. Alessandra chuckled and gave him a gentle shake, “Dante, are you already asleep?”

“Yes,” Dante insisted, without opening his eyes as he fought off a smile. He rolled away from his mother as she began to tousle his hair up; he buried his face into the couch cushions. 

Terzo smirked as he snatched the pillow up from under his son’s head and gently bopped him in the back with the decorative cushion, “You sleep talk now, too, eh? Piccolo bugiardo.”

Dante giggled as he attempted to protect himself from the leisurely blows Terzo continued to pelt him with as he sipped away at his drink. Terzo finished his drink and set the glass back down on the table as he took the pillow and lovingly squished it against Dante’s face one more time. He clicked his tongue at his offspring, motioning between them both, “You heard your mama. Bed time.”

“I’m not tired,” Mena replied, suppressing a yawn. Dante had quieted down again, breathing softly, still buried beneath the throw pillow.

“Yes, I know. It’s amazing how you’re never tired,” Terzo admitted defeatedly as he shifted his weight to his hip, placing his hands on his waist. He furrowed his brow as he looked at Mena; his daughter maintained unbreaking, pleading eye contact. Terzo couldn’t help but cave. If anyone else said it, he’d beat their ass; but he was without question, a complete pushover for his precious daughter. 

“Ay, fine, why not go find the new book Zio Copia got for you and show your fratellino before bed?” Terzo suggested. He heard his wife cough and pat at her throat.

“ahHEM--weak--hhem.”

Terzo snapped his attention to glare daggers at his wife. Alé chewed on her lips to keep from laughing-- hoping to not pee herself. Before he could start his thought, his daughter’s cries interrupted him. 

“Yes!” Mena screeched enthusiastically as she leapt up from the couch, jostling Dante awake again, “And then after we read the book maybe we can get a rat for Yule, Papa??”

“No rats!” Terzo exclaimed, wide-eyed, putting his hands up to silence his daughter as she began to ramble to her father at a mile a minute. Damn his fratellino; filling his children’s minds with ratto thoughts.

“Papa!” Mena pleaded, her expression mimicking her father’s pout. Terzo felt his eyelid twitch.

“No. Rats.” Terzo insisted as he pointed towards Mena’s bedroom, “Sbrigati.”

Mena let out a heavy sigh as she marched towards her room, Dante quietly slid off the couch and bobbled after his sister. The two shuffled to the older one’s room where they could talk about maybe having Zio talk to their papa about a new pet.

“Why are you so opposed to this? Didn’t you boys have pets growing up?” Alessandra pried as she dropped her hands behind her in an attempt to relieve some of the pressure from her back. The ache today was no joke and she couldn’t wait to be done with this whole pregnancy.

Terzo huffed as he sunk down into the couch next to his partner, “Well yes, occasionally, the ones we’d find outside… the snakes.. The lizard.. The frogs.. but Primo always made us return them. But I also didn’t find myself with a wife and three children back then. Back then I had time for additional commitments! I refuse to take care of anything else at this time. Do you want to do it? Manage all of us plus a furry stronzo?!”

Alessandra smirked, choosing not to answer her husband. She adjusted herself to rest her head against his chest; Terzo gathered her legs and dropped them over his lap so he could massage her swollen calves. Alessandra moaned a little louder than she had planned as her head lolled back against the couch’s armrest.

“Prometto, when they’re out of my home, they can have as many disease-ridden burdens as they can handle,” Terzo clucked his tongue as he mimed circles around his head, “I have enough disease-ridden, snot burdens as it is.”

She frowned as she held out the back of her palm in an attempt to touch his forehead. Terzo awkwardly strained over for his wife to feel his skin. Most things ended up being a group effort for the past few weeks, “You do feel warm. Maybe you have thee crud.”

“Are you surprised? Alé, I feel like it's every other two weeks one of us is sick because of the two mostriciattoli,” Terzo stared incredulously at his wife as he continued .

Alé rolled her eyes as she let herself sink further into the couch. She winced as she felt the dull cramping in her back again. 

“Are you alright, amore?” Terzo questioned. Alessandra let out a sharp breath, holding her side.

“She’s definitely down in the right spot, that’s for sure,” Alé wrinkled her nose, clenching her jaw. Terzo’s mouth formed a tight line as he reached a hand over to place against her firm stomach.  He paused for a moment, considering his words before continuing.

“Well after the week you’ve had on your hands and knees begging for my cock, I had hoped that would help get something moving,” his concerned expression turning into a mischievous grin, gently patting her belly.

“Get your hands off me,” Alessandra hissed at him, batting his hands away from her. She attempted to pull her legs away, but Terzo held on, keeping her in place.

“I can bring a lot to the table, dolce,” Terzo purred, capturing her hand. He gently lifted her fingers and brought them to his lips; placing a chaste kiss. He wiggled his eyebrows at her, eliciting a giggle in response.

“Yes, Terzo, believe me, I’m very aware. Sometimes too much,” she laughed motioning with her free hand to her stomach. He smirked before leaning forward to kiss her belly. Alé cupped his cheek and gave him a content smile. Terzo softened his gaze as he locked eyes with her. Alé’s breath hitched as she suddenly felt her husband crush his lips against hers. Alé let out a soft moan as she felt her husband’s hands wriggle down the front of her robe and cup at her enlarged breast. Terzo continued to nip and bite at her neck as he rolled her nipple between his fingers. Alé wanted this so badly, but the kids were too close and knew a book wouldn’t keep them busy long enough.

“Hey!” Alé interjected against her husband’s fervent kisses, she gently placed her palm against his chest to snap him out of this state, “Hey, keep it in your pants, Papa! This one would be hard to play off in front of them.”

Terzo blinked back, trying to change gears wasn’t so easy when his Prime Mover looked like this. He felt slightly light-headed as he sat back against the couch with his cock straining against the confines of his slacks. He willed the blood to continue to circulate to other parts of his body. 

“Mi dispiace…” he cleared his throat and let out a long, frustrated sigh, “Alé, when you are like this, something takes over my mind, and I can’t think straight around you.”

“Well, I am flattered, but I’m also exhausted and like you said, you already had a good run this week.”

Terzo sighed, trying to focus on anything other than her breasts, his eyes flitted to the side table momentarily before changing his tone, “You know… I was only trying to add on a second early yule gift for my bellissima Prime Mover.”

Alé glowered at him. The emotional whiplash this man gave her sometimes made her question if it was worth it, “Second gift what!? Terzo, we said no gifts for each other this year. PERIOD.”

“It’s not a gift, per se!” Terzo argued, backsliding. 

“Listen to me, I have very little patience right now for you. You bring me cookies with massive, very graphic dicks on them. You massage my legs to just cop a feel--”

“I most certai--”

“Ah!” Alessandra cut him off and continued, “You beat our son!”

Terzo broke out into a shit-eating grin and laughed boisterously, “Please, like you wouldn’t smack the shit out of that little cattivello with a pillow if you had the chance!”

Alé’s serious face broke and she giggled, giving her husband a gentle shove, “You know what Primo told me? Dante pulls the same shit you and Secondo put that poor man through! So this IS actually all your fault that he’s like this. This is just generational karma!”

“That chiacchierone is nothing but a gossip! Stop talking about me behind my back with my fratello!” Terzo scoffed, waving his wife off, still chuckling to himself.

“You know I only agreed to marry you because it would get me closer to Primo,” Alé teased, scratching her nails down Terzo’s arm, Terzo rolling his eyes at her comment. The two lovers sat in comfortable silence taking in the disarray of their festively decorated home. This many years later, neither of them could still fathom this is where their path would take them.

“Eh, so, I did get you… a something,” Terzo finally admitted, fiddling around with his golden wedding ring, avoiding his wife’s accusatory gaze. Alé softly, but deliberately, punched him square in the shoulder.

“God. Damn. You,” Alessandra’s stare could have turned her husband into a Medusa-esque statue, “And I mean that, Terzo! We said no gifts! You make me look bad because I am capable of following rules!”

Terzo winked at her, rubbing his shoulder, as he leaned back behind the couch, snagging a small black box from the side table she hadn’t noticed before. He held the gift out to her; it was adorned with a dried orange and a cinnamon stick

“You bastard,” she grumbled, crossing her arms. Terzo placed the small box on top of her stomach. Alessandra huffed, jiggling the box.

“Consider our daughter in there your gift to me,” Terzo added, giving her leg a gentle squeeze.

“Oh you’re damn right she is!” Alé interjected as she felt their unborn child wedge her foot into her ribcage. The more she thought about it, the less bad she felt. Terzo wasn’t the one who was going to have to push another one of his big-headed children out from his crotch in the upcoming days. This was the least he could do for her. She lifted the giftbox and removed the ribbon fastening on the lid. Alessandra lifted the lid to reveal a delicate, gold, three moon pendant with a sizeable amethyst affixed to it. Her jaw dropped as she gaped at the necklace.

“Jesus Christ.”

“He had nothing to do with this one either, my love,” Terzo chuckled. He brushed a strand of Alé’s beautiful hair out of her face and tucked it behind her ear. Alessandra stared at the jewelry, feeling every emotion all at once. Terzo continued, “I felt this was only fitting. Something nice for the woman who is graciously making me a father for the third time. Grazie, mia dea oscura. Grazie di tutto.”

“Oh Terzo,” Alé sniffed, “This is too much…”

“It is just barely the start, amore,” Terzo hummed, “After all you’ve done for me; with me. You deserve the world, vita mia. Thank you doesn’t seem to cut it.”

Alessandra chuckled as she handed her husband the jewelry to safely place on the table next to his crude gingerbread persons, “Alright, help me up. I’m going to start a bath, you get the kids into bed, then meet me back at the tub. I think you’ve earned one more round to really get something moving here.”

Terzo stared wide-eyed at his wife, in complete disbelief his plan had worked, “Ave Satanas.”

“Come on, cowboy,” Alé rubbed her hand against the length of his hardening cock, she leaned over to him as she pointed a stern finger in his face, as she mocked, “Sbrigati, eh?”

Terzo sucked his teeth, ignoring the piss poor imitation of himself his wife had just pulled on him, as he quickly sprung to his feet to assist Alé. As he helped her up, he pulled her straight into his embrace. He began planting small kisses over her face and neck, “Grazie mille. You will not regret this, Sorella!”

“Last chance, though, mister,” Alé warned him as she pulled away from his arms. Terzo hurriedly began snuffing out candles and grabbing dishes to leave in the kitchenette for later. She winked at him as she waddled down to their bathroom to go make good on her proposition. 

Translations: 

Ben fatto, mia figlia -- Well done, my girl

Stregallina pazza -- Crazy little witch

Piccolo bugiardo -- Little liar

Sbrigati -- Hurry up

Mostriciattoli -- Little monsters

Cattivello -- trouble-maker

Chiacchierone -- Chatterbox

Grazie, mia dea oscura -- Thank you, my dark goddess

Grazie di tutto -- Thank you for everything

[ome-magical-ramblings]

Don't be a fucking battery, Have a goal and walk toward it.

A bit of an intense title from a Hiatus but I needed to get this out there and it is primarily inspired from Eye of the Sorcerer/Brother Moloch's blogspot. The message is really the same of these two blog posts and they boil down to the following excerpt:

Now to make this work I will repeat this request daily until my request is fulfilled. Repetition gets fulfilled or “the squeaky wheel gets the grease” as the old saw goes and it is true in the spirit world - ask any experienced Houngan, Palero or Santero if this is not the case. The rabbi Jesus the Christ said, “Ask, and it shall be given unto you;” Matthew 7:7 and this is a spiritual truism that can be found worldwide in many cultures. The problem is most people never ask and those that ask, only ask once and give up.

Power is never gained by merely trying and giving up. You must wrest it by force and will. To do this you have to decide what it is you want then go after it until it is yours. Do you understand? Ask! Insist! Demand! There is nothing wrong with this. If you’re following a path and a plan, what is wrong with insisting you get what you desire? Demand it. You deserve it, do you not? Just remember you may not get exactly what you want so don’t be a child at Yule crying about it. Missing the mark by a fraction is not that bad.

Why the "don't be a battery" statement, is because you want to have a clear idea of where you're are going, what you're going with, what's happening.

Really all these stuff you should be journaling them and really questioning if what you're doing is improving you or burning you, building you or breaking you down. Your spirits can be good and earnest spirits also who wants what's good for you but you're not reaching out to them, or it could be the opposite. If you're not taking a step back to see yourself, who's gonna do it for you? If you don't have a good friend who would tell you that you're tweaking off then you're gonna be tweaking off the same wheel. That same wheel will become a habit and you will keep on your merry way like a fool.

Have a goal, Have a statement of Intent, grind at that. breath that every morning, every noon, every evening. Really put your heart and mind to it and you will get it. of course it's easier to get more money if you already have money but if you're not grinding for it, are you really gonna get it? I hope it's not seen from the point of view of wishing you to grind till you reach burnout( I tend to do that lol) , really have that sense of grace of steadfast but not rushing. You want to open the door of grace, if you can imagine how some people function throughout life without burning out is because they're not stressing themselves out and if you're stressing yourself and your spirit then that will get amplified back at you. If you don't take anything else from this post, then I would summarize it as:

Demand what you want but always be respectful and courteous.

Go in light and enjoy your life.

Find a good friend who would tell you when you're tweaking off

Work with your spirits not for your spirits.

Be Consistent and Have an objective plan

Journal positively and honestly.

Take ritual bath if you need to wash yourself off

Approach spirits with respectful and positive attitude and they will return that to you.

55:60(Quran) Is there any reward for goodness except goodness?

[thecatsandthecrone]

Wheel of the Year: Yule

Photo by Ksenia Yakovleva on Unsplash ☽🔮☾🕯🃏🌕🕸✨🍃🍄🧿🌙✩ 🪄📚

Yuletide, Yule, Christmas… one of the biggest festivals in the wheel of the year and definitely one of the most popular ones, as it got adapted into Christianity and popularized as the "day of the birth of Christ". It is now known, observed and celebrated all over the world, be the country Christian or not. Even if Christmas is celebrated the 25th of December, Yule os more commonly celebrated between the 21st and the 23rd December on the North Hemisphere and between the 21st and the 23rd of June in the Southern Hemiphere.

Yule comes right after Samhain and before Imbolc. While pagan in origin, Christianity took from it, adapted it and turned into the majour festival of this religion.This is also one of the easiest to celebrate big time without needing to come out of the broom closet: a lot of the imagery of Christmas actually mirrors that from Yule, in fact.

Yule is the celebration of the winter solstice. Yule celebrates midwinter, and the longest night of the year. What this signifies is that the reign of darkness is over, the tipping point has been passed, and the reign of light is coming back. From now on, days are becoming warmer and warmer, sunnier and sunnier and life will start to come back to Earth, as winter winds down.

We don't know exactly where the origin of the word "yule" comes from, but it is suspected it might come from Old Norse, the word “jól", which meant a celebratory feast. The festival also has ties to Germanic and Scandinavian gods such as Odin, and it also played a part on their folklore.

Yule is a time for rejoicing. It mainly celebrates letting go of the old, accounting for the past year, cleaning house and making room for the new, shiny coming things. It's a time for rebirth, new beginnings and hope. It is also a time for reflection and introspection, to make sure not to repeat the same mistakes of the past year, and to try to steer ourselves in the good direction. It is also a time to chase away the darkness through joy and merriment: ignoring that the harvests have ended and our reserves are almost empty, let's celebrate and make merry for the good times are coming soon!

It doesn't matter where you live: Christmas, and therefore Yule, has become so popularized and commercialized that you probably can celebrate it inside your home and outside the house for the entire month of December. In most countries of the world illuminations, jingles, people dressed up as something or other and all sorts of shiny decorations will help you get in the holiday spirit. This is also one of the strong suits of Yule: you can still celebrate as much as you want, deck the halls and get into the holiday spirit… while still being extremely subtle about the fact that you practice witchcraft !

If you'd like to celebrate Yule, here you have a short list of options available to you. Some might be more adecuate to solitary practice, others might be best if you are part of a coven.Some allow you to get all materialistic about it, while others will help you keep in touch with the more traditional, raw side of the festival. Whichever you choose, make sure to enjoy yourself and look forward to the hope and hapiness this event brings us !

-Candles: Ever wondered why candles feature so prominently in Christmas decor ? Well, it's part of an old tradition where candles and fires were lit for Yule, both to light up the longest, darkest night of the year and to honour the Sun and call it home. Both candles and fire are incredibly popular motifs for Yule and many traditions include them, so if you can, light some: battery candles will do as well !

-Decorate: It's pretty evident that decorating is also a big theme in Yule. Christmas has become extremely commercial and big, lavish, expensive decorations have become the go-to; but just like with all the other festivals you don't need to break the bank to bring that holiday spirit home. Buying commercial decorations is not the only way to deck the halls: crafting your own, or collecting seasonal items such as pinecones, holly or mistletoe from nature are all fantastic options. Just make sure you are not damaging any plants or taking any protected species (holly is endangered in many countries) and you are golden !

-Crafting: Yule celebrates the longest night of the year, which means up until then the hours of night, of dark and of cold have been too long to go outside. This makes Yule a great festival to sit by the bonfire (or by candlelight) crafting decorations. Sew, crochet, felt, draw or create in any way that pleases you both to decorate your house and to offer gifts to your loved ones. I would recommend creating an evergreen wreath: they are so simple to make and so elegant !

-Bake: Like I mentioned just before, the days before Yule are too dark and cold to be out of the house much. The harvest season has also ended, so fresh ingredients are lacking: baking with dry ingredients such as flour served a double purpose back in the day (cleaning up the pantry from non-perishables that would sustain you through winter and starting the oven that would light up the entire house). Cookies and biscuits are traditional, but so are breads, pies, cakes, pizza… highly caloric, sugary food is favoured as well: you need to put on some weight to be able to deal with the freezing winter temperatures!

-Feast: "Feast", "festival"… close enough. You can't have a festival without feasting, and what are you going to do, not eat all those delicious cookies you just baked ? To really honour the season and bring some good luck and prosperity your way, make sure to share that feast with your loved ones or to do some charity !

-Share: While Christianity and Christmas might have popularized the "charity" aspect of Yule, it was always important to share during this season: those neighbours that weren't as fortunate in the past year might be running low on supplies and ingredients. Therefore, sharing is extremely important during Yule if you have extra, no matter what shape it takes: share your abundance by inviting your loved ones to a feast, give lovely gifts to those around you, share your time and joy by volunteering at a soup kitchen…

-Divination: Yule is close enough to the end of the year that you might be wondering what it has in store for you. Using a pendulum, scrying, tarot, tasseomancy… any way is good to discover what the future might hold and to look forward to it.

-Deep cleansing: Yule is a moment of saying goodbye to the past and honouring rebirth and new beginnings, so it is a particularly auspicious moment to make inventory, clean house and make room for the new and coming. This might be more metaphorical (looking back in the past year and letting go of what didn't serve you) or more physical, like really cleaning your house. Cleanse yourself and your house and don't forget to protect yourself to keep the wacky energies at bay.

-Shadow work: Yule is a particularly good moment for self reflection, for looking into the past and for being honest with ourselves. Shadow work will help you come to terms with the most painful parts of your past and of yourself, make a clean break with them and, if you can't let them go, make strides to integrate them into yourself and to start the healing process.

-Honouring: Yule marks the day where the Sun, the brightness and the warmth start to return to us. It would be a good moment to honour the Sun, honour your deities, honour yourself and everything and all that have allowed you to come to this place. Meditation, self reflection, gratefulness, offerings to your deities… all things that help you feel connected to yourself and the world, and everything that makes you feel grateful and hopeful for the future, works here.

-Decorate your altar: We can't have a festival without decorating your altar ! Add colours, motifs and themes that remind you of the season to your altar. It's also a good option to add offerings to any deities you might work with.

Colours associated with Yule: White, black, red, green, silver, gold Crystals associated with Yule: Black obsidian, red jasper, carnelian, calcite, sunstone Food associated with Yule: Apples, spices, wine and alcoholic beverages, baked items, meat, berries, sweets

I hope you have enjoyed this post. If you would like me to continue making posts like this please support me so I can continue making them: you can support me by donating here https://ko-fi.com/bunnymatchamochi or by visiting my Etsy store here: https://www.etsy.com/shop/LovenestAtelier?ref=profile_header Reblogs and likes also help ! Thank you so much for reading me !

[dnickels]

On the subject of all feasts of the Church [my father] held views of an almost grotesque peculiarity. He looked upon each of them as nugatory and worthless, but the keeping of Christmas appeared to him by far the most hateful, and nothing less than an act of idolatry. 'The very word is Popish', he used to exclaim, 'Christ's Mass!' pursing up his lips with the gesture of one who tastes assafoetida by accident. Then he would adduce the antiquity of the so-called feast, adapted from horrible heathen rites, and itself a soiled relic of the abominable Yule-Tide. He would denounce the horrors of Christmas until it almost made me blush to look at a holly-berry.

On Christmas Day of this year 1857 our villa saw a very unusual sight. My Father had given strictest charge that no difference whatever was to be made in our meals on that day; the dinner was to be neither more copious than usual nor less so. He was obeyed, but the servants, secretly rebellious, made a small plum-pudding for themselves. (I discovered afterwards, with pain, that Miss Marks received a slice of it in her boudoir.) Early in the afternoon, the maids,—of whom we were now advanced to keeping two,—kindly remarked that 'the poor dear child ought to have a bit, anyhow', and wheedled me into the kitchen, where I ate a slice of plum-pudding. Shortly I began to feel that pain inside which in my frail state was inevitable, and my conscience smote me violently. At length I could bear my spiritual anguish no longer, and bursting into the study I called out: 'Oh! Papa, Papa, I have eaten of flesh offered to idols!' It took some time, between my sobs, to explain what had happened. Then my Father sternly said: 'Where is the accursed thing?' I explained that as much as was left of it was still on the kitchen table. He took me by the hand, and ran with me into the midst of the startled servants, seized what remained of the pudding, and with the plate in one hand and me still tight in the other, ran until we reached the dust-heap, when he flung the idolatrous confectionery on to the middle of the ashes, and then raked it deep down into the mass. The suddenness, the violence, the velocity of this extraordinary act made an impression on my memory which nothing will ever efface.

Edmund Gosse, Father and Son

[snigepippi]

According to al the Folk Tales I grew up with, local protestant priests very much did a lot of wizard shit. I'm sure it came from somewhere.

And at least where I live it was unofficially encouraged. Once when I researched Yule I found a correspondence between a young new ordained protestant priests who freshly from seminary school were send out into the countryside, and the area bishop. The young learned priest had set out to teach these farmers hownto be good christians and complained about how the locals were rigid, half pagan and used Yule instead of Christ Mass. The bishops answer was more or less: Listen son, the church gave up on the Yule discussion 200 years ago. And really just let them keep their smaller pagan practices, and help them with it when needed. Its better they believe you can help them with spirits, than them getting angry.

I understand why a lot of fantasy settings with Ambiguously Catholic organised religions go the old "the Church officially forbids magic while practising it in secret in order to monopolise its power" route, but it's almost a shame because the reality of the situation was much funnier.

Like, yes, a lot of Catholic clergy during the Middle Ages did practice magic in secret, but they weren't keeping it secret as some sort of sinister top-down conspiracy to deny magic to the Common People: they were mostly keeping it secret from their own superiors. It wasn't one of those "well, it's okay when we do it" deals: the Church very much did not want its local priests doing wizard shit. We have official records of local priests being disciplined for getting caught doing wizard shit. And the preponderance of evidence is that most of them would take their lumps, promise to stop doing wizard shit, then go right back to doing wizard shit.

It turns out that if you give a bunch of dudes education, literacy, and a lot of time on their hands, some non-zero percentage of them are going to decide to be wizards, no matter how hard you try to stop them from being wizards.

[sambinnie]

It’s been a while, and due to the river’s flooding and my recent dull minor illness I haven’t been in the river for almost a month, although we have celebrated the equinoxes and solstice and everything in-between since the Yule I also missed last year. The river keeps flowing, we mostly keep dipping, and I continue to feel enormous gratitude for it all. 

This year, between one thing and another, I’ve felt sad about my father’s death — and I am so terrible with dates, I can’t remember how long ago he died without trying to triangulate with nearby events which I also can’t remember properly, I can’t remember how old my sisters are or even when two of the housemates were born without having to do careful calculations that normally involves saying things out loud to work out which… happened… first? — but I think his death was around ten years ago, and the sadness is possibly for the first time. And it’s not grief, because I think that happened before he died, and in a few flashes where I would see him after his funeral in the supermarket, or through a doorway in my dreams; this is more a sense at how sad I am for him not to know this household now. I think how much he would have loved their creativity, their goofiness, their open-heartedness, their jokes and wit and tastes, how he would have loved singing the same songs he made us sing with our friends around the dinner table, how he would have loved teaching them about clouds and flight, about how to sight a star or name a tree. And then I think: I’m missing the father I had for about twelve scattered months through my childhood and early teens, when he wasn’t angry or depressed, waiting to drink or trying to hide his drinking, irritable or frightening or absent or manipulative, when he wasn’t alarmed and alienated by a house full of women who lived a life almost unrecognisable from his. My friend said, “Perhaps you wish he could just visit for an afternoon from the time he was at his best, just meet everyone and go for a walk in the woods and hang out for a meal and that would be it?” I didn’t want to cry, but I had to blink and press my lips together because that’s exactly what the feeling was, and I was overwhelmed to know people as brilliant as my friend, people who recognise these mad human impulses we all have. 

Speaking of brilliant people and mad impulses, October has finally, finally, after all these years, become one of my favourite months, after I’ve finally got a housemate who enjoys horror films. I was a very very late adopter, but thanks to last year's excellent October daily emails and this year's beautiful zine from the marvellous Tom Humberstone, plus the wonderfully creepy influence of another housemate’s ghosty-godmother, October means building a list of scary films through the year, to gorge throughout the month. Last year, we enjoyed The Innocents, Duel, Pontypool and The Stone Tapes, among others; this year we’ll hopefully manage Aliens, Nope, The Others, and Invasion of the Body Snatchers. It’s reassuring to me that there are still switches to be flicked in my brain, that there are still whole gigantic areas of culture that I’ve been completely turned off by that can suddenly, with the right fuse, become a topic I want to watch, read about, listen to podcasts on, discuss and debate and consume. In a recent book club meeting, the topic of jazz briefly came up, the perennial joke for a skippable genre. And yet — jazz? Really? There’s nothing you like about… all of jazz? Which covers everything from Big Band to Miles Davis — I mean: you can’t listen to Kind of Blue and think, “Christ, this is good music”? And of course I used to feel that way about jazz, in the same way I did about horror, and gammon-dad-joke history podcasts, and capers, and now I cannot get enough of any of them. Is this a sign of hope for humanity, somehow? 

Perhaps these new passions are really just buried seeds, blooming late in the season when they get their chance. Perhaps horror was planted when I was allowed to rent Jan Švankmajer’s Alice from our village video shop when I was a child, because it was about Alice in Wonderland and I was probably off ill from school, so did it matter if I sat for 90 minutes paralysed with terror and joy as my mind was blown apart that a film like this — a PG no less! — could exist, that children were allowed to watch in broad daylight, condoned and sponsored by their parents. Perhaps Alice and Monty Python and the Holy Grail and Cabaret and Ghostwatch and Blue Jam have swirled in my head for decades, finally settling now as insanely giddy passion for Inside and I Think You Should Leave and The Rehearsal as they drift into my view. And although I still wish every day that the internet didn’t exist beyond its 1999 form, I’m glad that not only have I enjoyed all these new things through it, but also more things that have grown from these things, like this brilliant essay by Thomas Flight on The Rehearsal, or this one on how I Think You Should Leave cured the essay-maker’s depression. Perhaps they are planting valuable seeds in someone's tender head right now.

While I ponder the art that shapes us, I’m also researching conspiracies and cults for a current job, and the excellent second series of BBC’s The Coming Storm is doing a cracking job of illustrating how even the most extreme positions and the most ridiculous actions always come with an internal logic and a cultural justification. Whether I’m on- or offline, I forget (just as we all do) that my experience is not universal, that my outlook is neither universal nor unique, and that a self-evident truth can often be seen in its obverse by someone else. If I’m sick of influencers, surely everyone is? If I think millionaires don’t need to gouge another £8 a month from their podcast listeners, surely no one will end up paying? If everyone I know can see Trump is one of the very worst options for the whole world, surely no one will really vote for him? 

Of course, everyone who enjoys thinking is mostly just — aren’t we? — trying to marry the stories that we input, with a moral core we already carry inside. But how much are we allowing ourselves to be changeable? How much can we consume content without feeling overwhelmed and deadened? How do we resist the urge to pick a side when that’s the whole shape of our culture, now? Yiyun Li writes remarkably in Harper’s Magazine about our current cultural impulse to flatten, to pick a tone and see no other, to reduce any story to moral policing and then instantly dismiss it. She writes (my ellipses): 

“There is something mind-boggling about this rush to censure. One has the urge to tell these people, Not everything is about your feelings… I admit that I worry when the younger generations use language that they have taken from public circulation without thinking it through first. Phrases like “dismantle the canon” may sound fabulous, but if you were to press the students to elaborate, you would get a string of grandiose and empty words... Thinking through — rather than just thinking — is important. A thought or an idea is never that precious. People have thoughts and ideas all the time, many of them preliminary. Sometimes people mistake their feelings for thoughts and ideas, which are in turn mistaken for absolute truths.”

(If you want to see this idea written as a slick and brilliant sitcom, can I recommend English Teacher, where teens are as dumb, selfish, short-sighted and loved as we were at that age, but now they’re living in a unique moment in history where these children are the only ones who know anything, and where if someone disagrees with them it’s literal violence and they are encouraged by adults who absolutely should know better that they have the ABSOLUTE moral high ground, no, duty, to destroy that person any way they can. It’s a nightmare piled on an apocalypse wrapped in a hilarious and empathetic script.)

Later, Li adds: 

“[W]hat afflicts literature, more than book banning, is this rapid loss of the ability to read for deeper meanings, to grasp subtlety, and to understand ambiguity. If conviction instead of clarity, the kind of clarity that arrives via muddled thinking, repeated questioning, and a tolerance for not knowing and not understanding — is the goal of reading and writing, then much is already lost.” 

I’ve felt for a long time that reading just any book isn’t enough. I mean, for someone who never reads, then reading even one book is great, that’s a win, but those people who do read, who like reading: do we have a moral responsibility to explore new ideas, to find ambiguity, to push into more difficult works and reach those characters in the 70 percent after which Li’s essay is named? Not into violence or degradation or misery, which is what normally ends up being labelled “Important Art”, but into the 70 percent who most accurately reflect life, the perfect, breath-taking middle-of-the-road stories and characters, from Barbara Pym's novels, or the non-fiction of Shirley Jackson or David Sedaris, or I Capture the Castle, or High Fidelity, or Rebecca West’s trilogy, wildly overnamed The Saga of the Century when it is the most perfectly written collection of devastatingly quotidian moments which will change you forever: porridge, a music lesson, a death, a marriage. 

We’re told so much that we ought to be great that we’ve forgotten the real goal is just to be good. Whenever you can, be a good neighbour, a good friend, a good partner, a good colleague, a good parent. Make good jokes, bake good tarts, share good clothes, accept that the vast majority of us will be average, and actually if we can do everything we can to drag the average up to ‘pretty decent’, then that’s something, isn't it?

Otherwise, is this hell? Right now, are we in hell? All the vital systems we’re literally forced to use to function in society are fairly insecure in one way or another, so we can no longer trust our conversations, our secrets, our finances, our data, all of which are chopped up and sold to corporations who have more protections than we do. In a world of increasing gloom, from weather and war to biodiversity and food supplies, the rich accelerate off into the billions while the poor, in almost every country, struggle to feed their children and keep their homes free from mould and bugs, despite jobs they took loans to qualify for and are still paying off; the health system in the UK is collapsing, as is the justice system, as is journalism, as is reasoned debate, as is education, and safeguarding, and libraries, and public access to outdoor spaces, and equal access to music and sport and theatre and nature and dance — all the things that AI cannot replicate, that generations before have known make our lives better and can be enjoyed by groups from every background, that bring people together and make us bonded. Of course those things would be ground down to dust, to become inaccessible, because if one wants to, at worst, don a tinfoil hat, or at best, read the news and some history books and listen to a few thoughtful people piping up, our lives are shaped by aggressive consumerist capitalism these days, so why on earth would multi-national conglomerates want us hanging out, often for free, and getting to know our neighbours so we understand they’re generally pretty much like us and we don’t have to buy something online from 6,000 miles away to kick-in our self-care that we require because someone rang our doorbell/spoke to us in a shop/disagreed with us online, when division and destruction is so much more profitable for those multi-nationals? I mean, really. Is this hell? 

On my walk this morning, I heard the 100th episode of This is Love, a podcast which is never less than excellent. This episode, ‘Valentine’, was about the host, Phoebe Judge, and the last few weeks she had with her mother as she, Valentine, was dying from pancreatic cancer. It’s so wonderful, and extremely sad, and full of love. It made me think of the weeks I had with my father as he died, and what that process looked like, and how I whispered to him that he could go when he wanted, but it felt like I was pushing him rather than releasing him, and how much I kept thinking of childbirth as he died over days and weeks. I thought of how happy I’d been on the day of his funeral, how light it felt, and I’d always thought it was seeing all the friends and family who’d come to support us (ten years on and I’m still amazed they came, how wonderful people are). But today, listening to this stranger talk about another stranger, I thought: maybe I was happy that day because I loved my father, and because I knew that, even though he could only share it on those too-rare musical, laugh-filled days, he loved me too. And maybe that’s why all of this is still worth doing. 

[automatismoateo]

Christmas Greetings Megathread plus Atheist Christmas Marathon on YouTube via /r/atheism

Christmas Greetings Megathread, plus Atheist Christmas Marathon on YouTube Link to the atheist marathon Greetings, all. Please use this thread to post Christmas greetings to your fellow heathens. Also, I am hijacking a post by /u/AtheistCarpenter announcing a YouTube marathon of atheist YouTubers. It is great to have an opportunity to promote atheists on YouTube and expose ourselves to some new talent. From the orginal post: Hi guys, Some atheist YouTubers have put this project together: The 2023 Christmas Marathon, it's not the first year so some of you might have heard of it before. If you're going to be alone for the day or just need a break from a relative (there's always one), wherever you are in the world, you will be able to tune in at any time on Christmas day and them join for a friendly chat. There some great channels/content creators, check them out you might find some new people to follow. PurpleRhymesWithOrange will kick things off at: 6am Dec 24th - US Eastern Time, which is: 11am Dec 24th - UTC/GMT 12am Dec 25th - Here in New Zealand and runs for 48 hours Link to the playlist with the schedule: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLy_r33o5hi4AYYtSfQQdFYsFUZC_vX-AW Happy Holidays everyone! Lyrics to the opening video: ART AGAINST IGNORANCE A pagan parody of "God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen" (aka: "Tidings Of Comfort & Joy"). With lyrics by @PurpleRhymesWithOrange Oh Blessed be fine Christian folk we mean you no dismay. We pagans simply ask you give us back our holiday. Jesus was be born in spring so celebrate in May. Kindly give us back our winter holiday, holiday Kindly give us back our winter holiday. Most common practices from our celebrations you did steal. Imitations sincere flattery, we're glad they do appeal But credit our traditions, don't act like such a heal. Kindly give us back our winter holiday, holiday Kindly give us back our winter holiday. The Yule tree we decorated long before Christ you'd heard. Acting like you invented it is really quite absurd. Not knowing where it comes from makes you look like such a nerd. Kindly give us back our winter holiday, holiday Kindly give us back our winter holiday. We turn the wheel of Life all year, even in the time of snow. And centuries before you we adorned with Mistletoe. Your arrogance annoys us most it really has to go. Kindly give us back our winter holiday, holiday Kindly give us back our winter holiday. You can keep the image of Santa Claus for him we have no need. Invented by commercialism in the spirit of greed. tell this lie to the children, it is most strange indeed. Kindly give us back our winter holiday, holiday Kindly give us back our winter holiday. 'Tis our observant of the yuletide you Christians do deface Trying to wedge it Jesus simply looks so out of place. Your not even known when he was born, seems like a disgrace. Kindly give us back our winter holiday, holiday Kindly give us back our winter holiday. Submitted December 24, 2023 at 11:47PM by dudleydidwrong (From Reddit https://ift.tt/btAkXHO)

[silencebwriter]

Happy Halfway Out of the Dark

Longer days and pleasant nights to all my northern hemisphere people

In the morning, I will celebrate Halfway out of the Dark by thanking the sun for continuing to give humanity a break and shining for everyone.

But I'm a third-shifter. Tonight is the longest night. I celebrate the earliest sunset by sleeping. Blessed Yule to me.

Still to come, is Christian destroy paganism by stealing their holidays, or Christmas. Keep Christ in Christmas, you Christian war mongers. Don't celebrate his birth on a day it might have actually been able to happen. Decree it has to be on a day to destroy Roman pagans' Saturnalia. Keep Christ out of Yule, and I'll keep Christ in Christmas gladly. The true reason for the season is earth's axial tip

Happy whatever pretend holiday you celebrate unless you worship the sun, then blessed be and enjoy your holiday, my friends

[tears-that-heal]

Red Flag Symbols for Christians

🎄 Seasonal Edition 🎄

Today on December 21, 2023 is the day of the Winter Solstice which is when the pagan holiday of the Yule Festival is celebrated. This is also where many people, mainly pagans, claim the “christmas tree” idea was originated. Personally, I’m not sure if that’s totally true cause from my own research, evergreens hold a strong significance in multiple cultures around the world. So yeah, the point of this series blog posts are to bring specific awareness to my fellow Christ-believers, especially our younger generation. Also my intention of this post is not to make my brothers and sister in the christian faith feel guilty for incorporating these yuletide elements and symbols into our own Christmas decor and traditions. 😊 Hay, even I use them! 🎄

Here’s are the most basic symbols used in celebrating the Yule Festival, along with their simplest meanings. I’m choosing not to go too deep in understanding the meanings cause really “why?”. I personally don’t see the benefit. I’ve learned to place personal boundaries for myself so I may protect my mind and my soul. The Lord has made me aware that I can easily become super curious and possibly obsess over things like this. God is definitely my armor and protection. (Ps. 91:4)

Just to give credit to where this pics are from is called spells8. Anywho, here’s a modern and practical example of a Yuletide alter. Oranges, certain berries, nuts and crystals. I’m now sure next week’s post will be on “crystals”. This trend is seriously booming in mainstream society. Just keep youreyes out for the post next Wednesday.

That’s it for this seasonal/holiday blog post. I wish you a Very Merry Christmas as we celebrate the memory of our Savior’s Birth!!! And God Bless Us, Everyone! 🎄💖

[lesfeldickbiblestudy]

What is the origin of the customs and traditions associated with Christmas, Easter, and April Fool's Day? [convertplayer id="pMFS5f9v2" width="700" height="525"] BABEL, "FALSE GODS" Turn to Genesis 11 and we'll touch on some things from our last lesson - things related to the Tower of Babel. Some of the customs and traditions that are still with us today have been with us so long we don't even know where they originated. For example, everyone is familiar with the Easter egg hunts that we have on Easter, and the Easter bunny; Santa Claus at Christmas and the Christmas tree; and every one of these things got its start at the Tower of Babel! As pagan worship was instituted in conjunction with the Tower of Babel, the first thing Semiramis started was the idea that her son, Tamar, was a son of god. We are coming full circle today! The more you understand Genesis the more you can understand what is taking place today. They weren't satisfied with just the male god figure, so they introduced female "goddesses," which became the very core of the mythologies of ancient Rome, Egypt, Greece and Babylon. And it didn't stop there! Along with the worship of the female goddesses such as Venus and Diana, came the fertility rites - sexuality. As a part of the pagan worship, the ancient temples such as the one of Ephesus dedicated to Diana and those of other goddesses, were nothing but glorified houses of prostitution done in the name of religion. This all went hand-in-hand with pagan worship. And in the fertility rites, they went back to nature. As one approaches the spring equinox, March 21 and 22, there is new life coming up all around, and that new life speaks of fertility. So when they put all this together, they formed their fertility rites around the worship-center of the spring equinox. Again, Satan was becoming the great counterfeiter because whether he had foreknowledge of what he was doing or not, also associated with the spring equinox would be our celebration of the Resurrection of Christ. Of course our Easter is timed according to the Passover of Israel as given in the Old Testament, and all of the Israeli feasts and time keeping was based on the moon's phases - either the new moon or the full moon. So way back at the Tower of Babel, they instituted the fertility rites in association with the spring equinox, and thereby we have the rabbit and eggs associated with our Easter, supposedly indicative of new life. But remember, it's pagan in its origin. It's the same way with our customs at Christmas which is close to the first day of winter - the winter solstice of December 21 and 22. Again the ancient pagans instituted the worship of the evergreen tree because it, alone was still showing signs of life when everything else looked dead. The ancient Europeans actually began worshipping the evergreen tree and had the custom of the burning of the "Yule log" - all coming out of this pagan system associated with the Tower of Babel. Back in the early days, during the first, second and third centuries a lot of these pagan people were coming into the "church." However they came into the church without having a genuine Salvation experience, and merely came to enjoy the worship service. So it wasn't long before they began introducing some of their pagan practices into the church and the church accommodated them, so here we are some 1900 years later and we take these things for granted. I want you to know where they come from, for they have no place in our present day church. I'm not telling people to throw away the Christmas tree (we have one), or to spoil Christmas and tell your kids that there's no such thing as Santa Claus, (maybe I should!), but I'll tell you this, anytime I see a Santa Claus going down the aisle of a church I won't go back there, because Santa Claus does not belong in a local church. He is a symbol of paganism, a symbol of the commercial world, and we should never mix it in with Christianity. Now, as I said before, I'm not

telling people to take away the fun of Santa Claus as long as they don't associate it with the birth of Christ. Also, I don't think that Christ was born on or around December 25. We know that He wasn't born in the winter time because the shepherds don't stay out in the fields in Judea in December - it's too cold! (Again, I just pass this out in speculation, because I can't prove it from Scripture), but I personally think that April 1 would really more likely be the time of His birth. I read one theory - and that's all it is, because nobody really knows when He was born - and that person speculated that Jesus was born in September, and the December 25th date was more likely the time of His conception. This would bring His birthday into September … And he may be right. The reason that I think April 1 would be the more likely date is that I believe Adam was created and brought on the scene on April 1st. God stipulated to Israel that April was to be the first month of the year, so everything in Israel's calendar back in biblical times began with April 1st. I think that Christ was probably resurrected on an April 1st, also. Like I said, I can't prove any of this, but I think there are a lot of things associated in God's time table with the first day of the month of the biblical year - the month of April. In addition, to kind of put the frosting on the cake, I think that Satan adulterated that day, April 1, with what we now call "April Fool's Day," or "All Fool's Day," which again came out of the occult practices and not from Scripture.  

[geminil0vr]

food for thought | draco malfoy

summary; after spending the night of the yule ball with renowned slytherin, draco malfoy, you catch his eye at breakfast. the boy seems to be hell-bent on seeing into your thoughts, and so you let him — but now you think he might've seen too much.

tagged; @partr1dge <3

word count; 1k give or take a few words maybe like exactly 23 idk i don't have specifics

content; use of legilimency and occlumency, sexual themes, choking if you use a magnifying glass, i really came for draco's childhood trauma + mental issues... my apologies, mentions of love (gross but also will they, won't they?).

a/n; this is a rewrite of "last night", something shitty i made ages ago !! anyway absolutely brilliant title god my mind is so powerful ugh </3 food ??? breakfast. for ??? thought??? occlumency, legilimency !!! i'm so sorry, i rewrote pretty much every word (including this authors note, is it that obvious?) at 5:30 am, it's not amazing, but i'm sleep deprived and on my period so safe to say i did tear up for absolutely no reason.

you and draco both said that you'd never speak of what ensued in his dormitory the night of the yule ball. and you obliged. and you both swore it would never happen again. and you nodded your head. it was a mutual, meaningful agreement, and post-orgasm, it had seemed like a brilliant idea. no consequences, no ties between you two, being from different houses.

but it was extremely difficult to stick to your word when your legs still ached from the night before.

and his breathy groans, hot air fanning over your ear as he railed into you senselessly, wouldn’t push out of your mind.

and the bruises trailing down from your neck to your waistline were constant reminders of his tongue tracing over them, blowing on them, teasing you to all hell.

every time you blinked, the images flashed beneath your eyelids.

every time you inhaled, you missed his hand squeezing over your throat, restricting air.

and merlin, any slight brush against your own skin made you jump, thinking of his body on yours, skin on skin, sweat, clammy hands, your arched back, the veins in his hands, his jaw, his collarbones.

in the great hall, you made your way to your table for breakfast alone, and gnawed at your bottom lip while playing around with the food on your plate, famished, yet still so full of racing thoughts and fresh memories. his hands on your thighs, the way he sighed your name, your nails digging into his back, leaving little crescent moons over it, and his shoulders, and his hips, too. again and again and again.

looking up from your plate to scan the empty room, your eyes met draco’s ones, his irises a stormy grey, pupils dilated, and you inhaled sharply, looking away. you'd gotten up early, as if it would stop suspicion rising if you seemed like you hadn't had a long night. it seemed as if he'd done that too, sat alone just the same.

merlin, you could feel the burn of his gaze, it made your body freeze and your cheeks heat up. he was looking right at you, right into you. you could feel it, the thumping at your temple that wouldn't cease, the throbbing behind your eyelids. he was attempting to penetrate into your thoughts.

as if he hadn't penetrated enough of you within the twenty-four hours, for fucks sake.

in need of a distraction, you turned your attention to the fork still lazily dancing across your plate, the cold handle twirling beneath your fingertips. it didn't feel fair, what he'd done to you. turning you into a mess, mind hazy. giving you a taste, then taking it away immediately, albeit that being exactly what you'd agreed on. and although he really had given you absolutely everything the night before (or rather, this morning), it still felt like a neverending tease, with all that need careening through your veins.

swallowing harshly, you straightened up in your seat, pulling at the hem of your skirt, playing with a loose, dark thread. christ, he was still trying. the headache never seemed to stop, so persistent, so demanding, a feeling you knew well through conversations with dumbledore. but this headache clouded your mind, unforgiving, begging to be let through. it wasn't asking for permission.

looking up once again, keeping your body still and your breath steady, you stared right back. taught ruthlessly by your grandmother, you'd always kept your mind shut from peering intruders. yet he was so fearlessly determined that you could feel it through his magic, snaking its way right through you, searching for any slight weaknesses in your armour. a strand of white hair fell over his forehead as he tilted his head slightly, jaw clenching. he wasn't giving up.

draco malfoy always had something to prove. he was always so sure of his own success, so much to the point of insecurity, of doubt. it was a troubling mix of brashness, arrogance, and cowardice sprouting from the child rooted deep inside him, desperate for assurance and acceptance.

but it wasn't your pity that led you to allow him to break through.

it was your need for him to know something you weren't so sure you could admit verbally. you were thinking of him. that was all.

so, you stared straight into the silver of his eyes and let him right in.

his hands digging into your hips. the sheen of sweat over his entire body, glistening. the faint bruises he left on your wrists. you begging him to go harder.

him obliging.

his eyes were clouded over, as if in a trance, flitting through your memories.

but using legilimency was as much a curse as it was a blessing. because he could feel everything you felt too. the lust, the want, the pain filtering through the pleasure. and he could feel every little thing you'd noticed about him; the mole above his left knee, and the other on his waist, and the few freckles beneath his eyes, and the scar he had just above his eyebrow that you'd never really noticed until you'd tipsily placed wet kisses over his hairline.

for what felt like hours, you let him in, until he decided he'd had enough.

he was blinking quickly, brows furrowed, pale cheeks now flushed pink. he clumsily stood up from the slytherin table, pushing aside his plate of food, and stormed, flustered, out of the room, much like the boy who'd kissed you the night before. all tongue and teeth, all desperation, all emotion. but it was just for the one night. that was all.

and you felt foolish.

because you realised, he'd felt everything.

that in those moments, you thought you might've even loved him.

the boy, all tongue, and teeth, and hands, all pale skin, all desperation. it was certainly something entirely worthy of love.

[doriana-gray-games]

Tis the season! When do the ROs put up their holiday decorations?

🎄🎄🎄

L: they probably don’t. Not enough energy/cheer/time + they mostly just use their apartment to sleep or whatever they work they bring home. Would say they don’t want decorations. Would secretly be really happy if they came home to a decorated apartment.

W: as early as is socially acceptable minus a week. They love Christmas and all Christmas related things. Especially the food—and spending time with loved ones when everyone are forced together in a cosy setting. They are the ones making a big deal out of Christmas and keeping even the smallest traditions alive.

A: mid December, maybe a week before Christmas Eve. Too nomadic to make it a big deal. Maybe has a little holiday figure they put out and maybe a mistletoe above their bed or something creepy like that lol. They Would secretly like to spend a proper Christmas with friends and loved ones. And They miss their family something terrible during Christmas.

H: their servants would do it at the appropriate time without their involvement. They don’t like Christmas a lot but they still allow the decorations. They would probably go to a few necessary holiday events, but no more than that. They spend Christmas Eve and day like any other.

I just realised only Watson has someone to spend Christmas with and that’s Sherlock and Mrs Hudson… 🥺

Side note: where I am from we celebrate Jul (related to Yule I think), which is sort of like Christmas I think, and so when I say Christmas what I am actually thinking is jul… so to me it’s not necessarily super related Christ’s birth and all that. My point is that I don’t mean to exclude anyone when I say Christmas, and it boils down to mostly just a translation issue 😅🥰

[sideprince]

Not to keep hopping on this post every time it's on my dash, but I can't get behind the "Christmas is older than the Statute of Secrecy" argument and I've seen it a couple times now. Christmas wasn't a significant holiday in Britain (and most places) until the Victorian period. During various periods in British and American history, it was even banned (by the Puritans, surprise surprise).

In Medieval England holidays and feast days were pretty much a monthly occurrence, based around the needs of the harvest schedule, and of varying cultural significance. Advent calendars, sending cards, and gift giving didn't become a widespread part of Christmas observance until the mid-late 19th century. There's also a connection between the rise of the cultural significance of Christmas happening in the Victorian Era, the rise of industrialization before labor laws and regulations were passed, and the extent of British colonialization during that period. Christmas was an opportunity for those who worked 7 days a week to take a short break; it was also a way for a global colonial power to homogenize the culture of countries they had colonized (obviously not the only way, but it was a convenient part of that cultural mechanism and thus played up in significance). Plus, in a time when mass production was a new and boundless horizon of financial possibilities (for those who stood to profit off it, at least), there was a great benefit in a holiday that could be centered around gift-giving.

So the idea that the Statute of Secrecy had a great impact on whether or not wizards celebrate Christmas to the extent they do doesn't make a lot of sense. It would have been interesting if, instead, another holiday had remained more significant in the wizarding world while it became less so in the muggle world, like Michaelmas or the Carnival before Lent, or Good Friday, or Midsummer's Eve. I say these ones specifically because there's a lot of medieval imagery in Harry Potter and these were significant festivals in medieval England. Michaelmas in particular would have been a interesting choice, because it was abolished in the 18th century, after the Statute of Secrecy was passed, and so it would be a statement on Wizards retaining their own culture and the ways the muggle world both affected wizarding culture and had limited influence over it. (And obviously the most relevant choice would have been Yule, which, while celebrated by medieval Christians, is more overt about its pagan roots than Christmas.) If anything, the significance of Christmas implies a closer tie with the muggle world, as the elevation of the holiday to a culturally significant one is so historically recent. We could therefore infer that wizarding cultural trends follow muggle cultural trends, at least when it comes to larger cultural shifts, which would also imply a relatively close relationship between the two cultures.

I also feel I have to point out, re: the reblog before this one, that we don't know if Harry was baptized, only that he has godparents. It's not specified what the practice around naming godparents is in the wizarding world, but the words "baptism" and "baptised" don't occur in the HP books whatsoever - I checked to be sure. In the same vein I disagree with the idea that "christian wizards migth see Jesus' story as 'knowledge' more than 'beliefs', in other words, be more devote than christian muggles." These points assume a personal interpretation of both the HP and Christian canon to be a universal one, and with no textual proof either cited, or, tbh, any that I could even infer given knowledge of the text.

Although Harry Potter as a story has strong Christian undertones, such as the whole thing being a Christ allegory, that imagery doesn't have the same role in-universe. The Christ allegory is a Doylist element, but the Watsonian elements don't even acknowledge the existence of Jesus or even of any kind of significant religious body. We don't even see muggle characters like the Durlseys ever go to church, which could imply a deliberate choice on the author's part not to contrast a pagan wizarding world with a Christian muggle one.

So the idea that wizards might have any opinion on Jesus, let alone one that might lead them to consider themselves more knowledgable or devout that muggles, has absolutely no basis in the books. It also is a perspective I find somewhat problematic in the way it takes for granted the presence of Christianity and a cultural perspective on Christ as a figurehead in the wizarding community of HP in a way that excludes other religions and beliefs. While the story is clearly written from the perspective of its white British author, it also includes characters (albeit minor ones) from diverse backgrounds, such as the Patil twins who might be Hindi, Anthony Goldstein who we can presume is Jewish, etc. Even so, it seems to be a significant point that these characters' (and others') religion isn't mentioned, because religion itself isn't mentioned at all. There's a conversation to be had (and it's been talked about a lot) that from a Doylist perspective a lot of the author's personal religious influence worked its way into the text and is projected onto it, but from a Watsonian perspective religion isn't mentioned in the HP universe, let alone specific religious figures like Christ.

question to the void: what watsonian explanation is there for wizards celebrating christmas?

[imaginearyparties]

So the conservatives who was babbling on about "bringing the Christ back to Christmas" was right in a way? (I did not know it was inherently an religious holiday as a non American)

To my understanding, Christmas is a Christian celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ*. Hence its name, a portmanteau of “Christ” and “mass”. The word “Christ” is used by Christians to recognize Jesus as the messiah, which part of Christian doctrine. Given that Christ is in the name of the holiday, it’s hard for me to imagine how it’s religious association could have escaped you.

Anyways, in the US (at least) there’s a movement among Christians against the secularization and commercialization of the holiday, because in their eyes it detracts from the true purpose of the holiday, the celebration of the birth of Jesus. I don’t know which conservative you’re referring to, but it’s highly possible that they were in fact talking about that issue**.

* Much of the Christmas traditions that are commonplace today were absorbed from polytheistic holidays. I’m not the person to ask about that, but it’s both important to acknowledge and doesn’t detract from the inherent Christianity of the holiday as it exists in its current form. But if you ever see people talking about “Yule” they’re likely referring to a sort of reclaimed pagan version of Christmas (to my understanding). Edit: the way this is phrased is sort of invalidating to Yule, which is not my intention. Pagans have every right to reclaim their traditions.

** There is also a conservative Christian idea of the “war on Christmas”, which refers to the inclusion of other holidays in the winter holiday acknowledgements. This will usually be along the lines of railing against saying “happy holidays” instead of “merry Christmas” or being upset that people make active efforts to keep religious holidays out of the public sphere. This is a different idea from the one I described above.