#my mom and I used to go to the local version of the nutcracker when I was a kid

[cookinguptales]

being a person of annoyingly diverse interests is so funny like "oh wow, I definitely would've gone to that guy performing an original lute accompaniment to the 1928 version of the fall of the house of usher if I weren't going to the nutcracker with my mommy :)"

[whichwitchami]

Do you do anything special for the winter holidays? (Assuming you celebrate anything). Do you have any traditions you'd like to share? Or stories? Or a favorite winter recepie? I know most of those lean on the idea that you celebrate something and if you don't then by all means don't worry about it. Or share something wintery that isn't about a holiday. I dunno. I was thinking too much about too much and thought I'd offer an opportunity to just talk about whatever. Sorry ~🏵️

Hi friend!

I’ve been pondering this a lot this year  since my boyfriend said he wanted to celebrate more of the Pagan holiday’s with me. A lot of times I just let them slip by because I don’t follow the Wiccan wheel of the year, and so I don’t much know what to do for each holiday. A lot of what I’’ve read for the Norse versions of the holiday’s involve bonfires and feasts, which are nice, but a bonfire in Ohio winter isn’t the most realistic thing. 

I do technically celebrate “Christmas” or whatever secular, cultural thing “Christmas” is in America now. I was raised in a Christian household so 🤷

By that I mean there’s always a tree and decorations and we get each other presents and have a nice meal. My mom gave up on forcing my sibling and I to go to church well before either of us knew we were pagan. In non-covid times and before I moved away, we all went to visit family and do gifts and a nice meal there as well. 

This year its about the same on the “Christmas” end, although not with my family because I’m now 3 states away and its COVID. My boyfriend and I got a fake tree to decorate (we call it the Yule tree cos of the idea that Christmas trees may have been stolen from a pagan tradition) and there’s gifts under the tree. He wants to try and make a beef wellington for Christmas dinner...though neither of us have taken on anything like that for cooking. We’ll go over to his parents for a meal and gift exchange as well. His mother was raised Catholic and while she’s not hardcore, she still upholds a lot of the Christian stuff. 

For Yule celebrations this year, I plan on making wassail (a sort of tradition? My sibling and I have made it a few times, it stems from something I’ll talk about more later in this post) and we got a candle that’s supposed to smell like a Yule log. I told my boyfriend we can’t light it until Yule XD. I don’t know if we’ll do much more than that because I work on Yule this year (well, I work the 21st which I believe is Yule this year)

There are some non religious things my family and I did every winter while my sibling and I were in school. I haven’t figured out foolproof ways to incorporate them now that we’ve both graduated, but I try to do something to call back to those traditions each year. 

While we were in school my sibling and I danced in the local dance theater’s production of the Nutcracker for YEARS. We even got my mom in on it one year as a party guest in the first act. None of us dance anymore since my sibling and I went off to college and especially in the year of COVID we’re not going to go to any shows. I’ll probably just play the music a bunch or try to find a movie of it that isn’t terrible. 

The other one was attending my high schools madrigal play. We went almost every year for 8 years (my sibling and i are 4 years apart, so my 4 years of high school and their 4 years of high school) because my sibling and I both had friends who were in it each year. For anyone who doesn’t know what madrigal is, it’s a dinner and a show type of thing with singing in between courses, sometimes dancing, and sometimes a play within the show. The premise is you’re attending a feast at the house of a medieval King and Queen with all his lords and ladies. So the singers are dressed up in garb and sing traditional carols in between courses of a (semi) traditional meal. That’s where my sibling and I got the wassail from. We loved wassail the best at madrigal and so we learned how to make it ourselves. 

I saw one idea on Facebook this year that I’d love to start, where you gift everyone in the house a book on Christmas eve and then spend the evening reading the book you were gifted. I think that’d be fun to turn into a tradition. 

If/ when there’s kids in the picture, a friend of mine from high school had a tradition where the “elves” would drop off small gifts each day leading up to Christmas. Things like pajama’s, trinkets, etc. and the kids would have to do a mini scavenger hunt to find them, then on Christmas day they’d get the big presents. I think something like that could be fun as well. 

Also, I want to teach my hypothetical kids the importance of giving back. There’s one youtuber I watch who is a phenomenal parent, and has taught his kids the importance of giving back via donations. Every year his child /wants/ to go through his toys and donate ones he doesn’t play with anymore to help kids in need and to make room for new toys he’ll get for Christmas. Like the kid seems genuinely happy  to get rid of his old toys rather than selfishly hold onto them. I’d be so happy if I could instill the same sense of giving in my own children. 

Honestly for me, whether its Yule or “Christmas” in so much as the cultural aspect of it that’s bled into every American home whether they want it or not, I just want to focus on simple, cozy, quiet things with my family over big fancy to-do’s. Like reading a book on Christmas even in a comfy pair of new pj’s with a mug of wassail with some candles burning. That sounds so much better than a big, stressful party with my whole family. 

That was kind of a long, rambly post. If anyone who reads all the way through wants to chime in on their traditions, I’d love to hear them!