#midwinter traditions

[sheliesshattered]

About a week ago I had an idea for a silly little idea for a holiday season craft project: a yule goat about the size of a small dog (~20"x20") to sit in our street-facing garden window, with the orange Halloween twinkle lights underneath to make him look like he's been set on fire. Because Yule!

I made a basic wire skeleton and covered it in layers and layers of raffia, slowly building out the head, torso, legs, tail, and horns. I gave him a little billy-goat beard made from wheat stalks, and wrapped red raffia ribbon around him to hold everything together. Originally I had his horns more tightly coiled, but from far away he looked like a weird elephant or even a pig, so I restyled them as the very last step. But the horns have a nice curve to them now, so even though I had to undo it, it worked out for the best.

At sunset tonight we set him up in the window that faces out onto the street, with the twinkle lights underneath and coiling up his legs. After going outside to take some pictures, both Jack and I decided that the candles on the top shelf of the window (one which came on with a timer, the others which didn't) were throwing off the balance, so we've taken them out now, leaving just the Yule goat with his lights, and the hanging lanterns on either side.

I'm quite certain that our neighbors will be confused about what the hell we've put in our window to light up every evening for the rest of the year, but eh, I love my ridiculous little goat. If all the crows (and ravens!) hanging about haven't clued in the neighbors that we're a devoutly pagan household, I'm not sure a flaming Yule goat will do much to move the needle, lol.

[fallbabylon]

Montol Midwinter Festival- Penzance, Cornwall.

[ironyscleverer]

5 Christmas/Yule/Winter Albums for Your Enjoyment:

the vibes are a spooky folkloric midwinter somewhere down the centuries in Darkest Europe (mostly England).

If on a Winter’s Night, by Sting

Ancient Winter, by Leah

The Castle of the Holly King: Secular Songs for the Yuletide by Shira Kammen

The Holly King, by MaddRegaeles Muse

A Feast of Songs: Holiday Music from the Middle Ages, by Barry and Beth Hall

Plus my own personal playlist featuring songs from all of these albums and more.

Happy listening!!!

[lavender1217]

[spiky-berry21]

AHAHAHAGUSJFZTUXBH- *cough cough* pardon me. Just finished Calli's little character poster after... Multiple hours, and here it is!

Transcription (so sorry for the blurriness 😭):

Born: December 6th, 1899

Murray bridge, South Australia

Born and raised on the murky expanse of the Murray river, Calliope was always one for life on her family's cattle farm. And, undenounced to her parents, the life of a small-time bank robber in the latter half of her teenage years. Considered more wayward and rebellious the older she got, it came as a shock to her when her elder brothers, and father, were enlisted in the armed forces to fight in the great war. Leaving only her and her mother to take care of the farm for the years they were away. And by circumstances of a tragic heartbreak, Calliope left her homeland and became a stowaway on a cargo ship heading for the distant lands of the Americas. In the hopes of finding an opportunity to build a new life for herself.

Though as they always say, old habits die hard. With the young Australian lass getting recruited for little pay in the esteemed Marigold gang. Now both a well-known patron, and a long-time bootlegger. Nothing, and she means nothing, is getting in the way of her current life. Or... That's what she thinks at least.

Living a congenial life on the wooden panels and planks of the Marigold room's backstage area, and being mostly forgotten about by a certain Marigold night manager. Calliope enjoys a plethora of... Interesting activities. Those including: Precarious automobile operating, wrangling with almost any cattle you put in front of her, mending household appliances, and dutifully using a shotgun. Her weapon of choice.

Woo! Thank you for reading all that (if you did), Maeve and Angel are going to be here (hopefully) soon. Feel free to ask any questions!

As always, have a magnificent day/night! 😘

[cogumellow]

entrudo nas montanhas // lousa, portugal // winter 2024 // ©

[wyvunn]

Merry Midwinter holidays everyone!

[roboraindrop]

The story being so vast and having such established lore means that I can Google things like "Was there a winter celebration in Rohan" and get an actual answer so that I can think about Grima celebrating winter holiday,,,, 👉👈

[florencebrennan]

Happy Candlemas/Imbolc!

Temperature is higher than normal so there's already flowers like these yellow fellas and mallows. It's sunny and nice.

I've decided to try an incense from an inquisitorial text (from my province!) for various purposes. Sweeping the floors, smoke cleansing the whole house (not just my bedroom like usual) and lighting candles behind doors to light and purify the home.

I bought beeswax candles but they haven't arrived yet, so I'll prepare them later.

I've also made pancakes 🤤

This month for me is quite pack with stuff, but mainly purification rituals.

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[sheliesshattered]

current mood: haven't finished the last of the Halloween candy yet, but can't wait to start making Yule cookies

[dendro80]

Julafton hos oss. 😊

Christmas at our home. 😊

December 2023

Avesta, Dalarna, Sweden

[violetmoondaughter]

These old Italian tales have the primary function to explain the changing of weather during midwinter and the coming of spring.

Other tales explain the different dark colors of the male and female blackbird through the story of a female blackbird that hid in a chimney to protect herself and her children from the coldest days of winter. The bird, that according to the legend was originally white, became black because of the ashes.

In other version of the story the blackbird had an argument with the January God, who used to bring rain, snow, and cold weather on earth. The bird to save herself from the cold weather decided to hide in her nest until the end of the month. But the God to punish her made those last days the coldest, so when the bird finally came out her plumage had darkened because of the storm.

This version of the story is also connected with the “Days of the Old Lady” in which an old woman, happy for the coming of spring mocked the Winter God who decided to bring back the cold weather to punish the woman.

In Italy we don’t celebrate these days, but we certainly do believe that the Days of the Blackbird are the coldest of the year.

[lavender1217]

[spiky-berry21]

Second Lacka-oc finished!

(Transcription for any who find the image too blurry):

Born: November 27th, 1903

Salem, Massachusetts

Maeve Midwinter, the proprietor (and solitary worker) of a cosy little bookstore in downtown St. Louis. The epitome of a pristine and upstanding citizen, she carries herself with utmost pride. Serving her community like the very legal citizen she is.

Well... Aside from her random bursts of uncontrollable rage. But she will assure you it was just the amount of caffeine she had in her coffee that morning, "It's nothing, I assure you!". But besides that, Maeve has devoted her life to her books, the few things in life she finds worth her time. That, and the fact that she chooses to associate with what her mother would call the scum of the earth, supplying speakeasies with a portion of illegally made wine. Though perhaps being a supplier certainly has its... Perks. For example, getting to know the charming Australian bootlegger working for the infamous Marigold gang. Who she seems to have taken quite the liking to.

Among the pleasantness of her small bookshop on the corner, this gentlewoman enjoys listening to the ambience of her many records on her gramaphone. Coupled with the oh so calming turn of a book page when nobody is around. Loving all fashion with ruffles and jewels to them, she collects anything even remotely shiny she can get her little mitts on. As well as being an avid lover of dark humour, and strawberry flavoured macarons.

Very happy to have Maeve's character card done, I find her to be the more ostentatious of the three given her... wealthier upbringing.

As always, have a dazzling rest of your day/night! 😘

[thedaveandkimmershow]

I won't lie. I'm pretty sure I equate watching Christmas movies and TV shows with actually doing something at Christmastime. For sure the experience conjures that Christmastime vibe for me.

This year, for whatever reason, Christmas movies and TV shows didn't make it into our Christmastime experience.

Full disclosure: we've been watching Big Bang Theory and The Diplomat. Don't know what to tell you. Our brains are just in that gear this season.

So.

What have we done???

Well, we managed our enduring tradition of mailing our friends and family this years' Collision-Ris Christmas cards along with the 411 on our year. The lovely thing about this tradition is that, for the time that I'm actually writing inside the Christmas card to a specific family, a specific friend, I'm actively thinking about them, about their year, and about our wishes for them in the New Year.

Kimmer's already got a bunch of Christmas baked goodies cooked. Therfore I've already got a bunch of Christmas baked goodies tasting done.

HUZZAH!

Interestingly, this season we picked up the morning habit of setting in motion a YouTube video of a Christmas village with sweet Christmas carols played on piano to soundtrack the beginning of our days. We both decided this year that "In The Bleak Midwinter" is one of our favorite Christmas carols now because of the BBC series "Ghosts". Without that framing, though, we'd never think a song with "bleak" in the title could possibly be a Christmas carol.

I don't know where Kimmer 'n Linzy are with their Christmas shopping... but I'm done as of today. Managed that over the last two-and-a-half weeks, accomplished through a combination of in-store and on-line shopping that did not make me crazy. (More on the specifics after Christmas 😉)

Blogging this month turned into a protracted meditation on Hope and what it means and takes to successfully and sustainably help people in need. Even all the different things "in need" can mean.

Charles Dickens and his book "A Christmas Carol" are on my mind every day as I pick through certain pages of that book for deeper dives.

During our days at home, I've got a coupla soundtracks going: a classic rock Christmas YouTube playlist and a playlist that contains only covers of "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas" that range from voice and acoustic guitar to full choir and orchestra.

As soon as lights and decorations went up outdoors and in stores this year, I started documenting them in photographs at thrift stores, neighborhoods, and downtowns.

We haven't listened to specific advent podcasts but our morning routine does include podcasts about faith and the implications of faith in the world.

I think our Christmas tree's been up for a weeks. Which is different 'cause we had our original, immortal tree that we bought from Target when Linzy was three... we had that tree up for twenty-two years, only taking it down (along with the tree in our apartment) when we moved back into the house earlier this year.

So yeah. For the first time in twenty-two years we actually had no Christmas tree in our house, lighted or decorated.

That first tree wound up with our friends at the local Value Village, hopefully for the beginning of some other family's Christmas traditions. We're using, instead, the tree from our apartment that's narrower and fits the space better.

And yeah.

We already know it's staying up.

No question about that. It looks perfect right where it is.

It makes our living room work.

So far, the new tree has a string of multicolored lights running up the trunk with at least two strings of white lights circling the tips of the branches, a compromise Kimmer 'n I settled on probably the first year of our marriage as her family was a white Christmas tree lights family and my family was a multicolored Christmas tree lights family. Not exactly the Hatfields and McCoys...

But still a thing to navigate.

Which we continue to do.

As for Christmas tree ornaments?

Yeah. Right now we're starting from scratch with at least three crates of ornaments representing different phases of our family Christmas tree aesthetic.

So.

Do we choose one of those?

Do we conjure something new?

Or do we fashion something in-between.

Three sleeps to go until Christmas Day... we're gonna figure that out right soon.

This recent Saturday, we set up lights around our living room window and around the French doors of our dining room french doors. Also put one set of mesh lights on the bush next to our front door and quickly realized that one is not enough. Too narrow. So it's supplemented with a random string of lights that, just as randomly, works.

Hand to God. I threw it on there... and the whole thing looks of a piece.

Sunday we strung icicle lights along the gutter from above our front door to the edge of the front face of our garage. Which means we no longer look like we're the only ones in the neighborhood NOT celebrating Christmastime.

One December tradition I don't always manage but sometimes I do... I managed this year a visit to the gravesite of my old neighborhood bible school teacher for whom I had not an ounce of respect when I was an A.D.D. grade school kid and for whom I developed a ton of respect as I, you know, grew up. She used to visit my parent's home this time of year to drop off a card and a gift for my birthday and Christmas... and then later when she couldn't get around so well I would walk the couple blocks to her home instead this time of year.

It's a habit, a tradition, that continues to this day (as I can), with flowers and a card at her gravesite.

So yeah. It's been Christmastime for us in a bunch of different ways that suit the season.

With three sleeps until Christmas, one sleep until my birthday, and New Year's just around the corner, the Christmastime vibe is gonna shoot up even more as we head into downtown Seattle tomorrow to do a bit of our own Christmas adventuring and photography which is a thing we used to do a ton with 35mm SLR cameras slung around our necks when we first started dating. Then it's Christmas Eve day and then literally Christmas Eve and then finally Christmas itself... all three days for which we already have plans across 'em. With peace, rest, and relaxation baked into those plans.

So with any luck...

It should be a lovely next few days.

Merry Christmas!

☺️