Yule

Yule was a winter festival celebrated in Germanic and Scandinavian regions by pagan communities in pre-Christian times. Yule was celebrated in late December or early January according to the lunar calendar.

With the spread of Christianity to these regions, coupled to the adoption of the Julian calendar, Yule was placed on 25th December in order to correspond with Christmas.

Yule is variously known as Jul (Norway, Sweden and Denmark), Joulu (Finland), Joulod (Estonia), Jol (the Faroe Islands) across northern Europe in relation to the Christmas festivities, with Christmas Day being set as 25th December. The Christmas period is sometimes known as Yuletide.

Yule as a Christian celebration is an alternative name for Christmas Day.

Yule is also an important festival for neo-pagans in general and Germanic neo-pagan groups in particular, who often attempt to reconstruct traditional celebrations from historical accounts. They tend to use the 25th December as a date for festivities, but often mirror Christmas with any Christian elements removed.

Yule to the pagan communities was associated with the Winter Solstice, but Christianity linked itself to traditional celebrations and merged the two festivals in many cases.

In the Wiccan communities, Yule is not related to Christian or Pagan celebrations, being celebrated still at the time of the Winter Solstice - 21st or 22nd December in the Northern hemisphere and 21st or 22nd June in the Southern hemisphere.

Similarly, New Age Communities celebrate Yule at the time of the Winter Solstice in both the Northern and Southern hemispheres.

The Wiccan and New Age celebrations bear no relationship with Yule as a Christian, Neopagan or Germanic Neopagan festival.

If you're looking for a way to commemorate this event, you might be interested in this article: Commemorations with Cross Stitch

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