The Holiday Season

The winter season, its holidays and I have had a long, sometimes sordid, relationship throughout my life.

As a child, I loved everything about winter and Christmas. I wasn't raised in a religious household, so there was only one fellow that mattered to me during winter. He has a beard, is a kind spirited soul but couldn't possibly pull off sandals with his preference to living in a frigid place:

I believed this rosy cheeked man brought his reindeer drawn sleigh to my house to deliver presents right up until the fine old age of 6, when I woke up feeling sick and discovered my mom putting gifts under the tree and my dad eating Santa's cookies! No amount of well thought out excuses could convince me that Santa was in fact real and the season lost a bit of magic for me for a little while.

In the following Christmases however, I took pleasure in finding the perfect tree, decorating the house, getting my whole family together on Christmas eve and helping my parents play Santa after everyone had gone home and my younger siblings went off to bed with visions of presents dancing in their heads. I loved the family aspect of the holidays as well as the gifts and glamor of the season.

Everything was wonderful between Christmas and I until one fateful Christmas when I was a hair shy of 17. On this particular Christmas morning, I had a feeling of dread in my stomach as my sister, who was then 6, pounded on my door at 6am demanding I get out of bed so we could open presents. You see, in my family no one can open a single present until everyone is out of bed and gathered around the tree. I rolled out of bed and went out to the living room where the siblings eagerly awaited my arrival. We all opened our gifts, followed by my parents and at the end of it all, like he always did my dad asked if everyone had gotten what they wanted. I remember everyone saying yes except for my mother, who proceeded to proclaim that all she wanted for Christmas was a divorce. That's right. The big old D-word, right in front of my 6 year old sister and 14 year old brother, who both proceeded to freak out and cry as my parents fought. I dragged the siblings away to try to comfort them and Christmas was ruined. Completely, utterly, destroyed.

By the following year my mother had her wish and we began the unpleasant tradition of splitting our family up for the holidays. The weekend before Christmas we went to my aunt's where we saw my mother and her side of the family. Christmas eve my older brother and his wife would come over to my dad's. The rest of my dad's family lived in Florida and Montana, so we never really saw them. Christmas day, we'd open our gifts from our dad (and Santa, who still visted!) before I'd go off to spend the afternoon with my boyfriend at the time's family. Christmas was a royal pain in the ass for me and a reminder of all the misery within my family. I couldn't give my left foot about picking out a tree, much less decorating it, I stopped caring about all of my favorite Christmas movies, including 'A Christmas Story' and I really didn't enjoy getting together with my family anymore. If 'A Christmas Carol' had been about a female Scrooge, I would have been her.

It was only about a year before that awful Christmas that I had put the name 'Pagan' to the feelings I had carried throughout my life. Doing research at the time without ready access to other pagans, the internet or books had been tough and I had wandered for a while just feeling a connection to particular gods and goddesses and all of nature, but without any knowledge of the sabbats or mythos of the year. About 4 years ago, I began to celebrate Yule and in doing so, began to rekindle my joy in the traditions of the Christmases of my youth. As the only pagan among my family and friends, Yule has always been my own special day; a holiday untainted by previous disasters and expectations. I took pleasure in learning about the origins of holiday symbols like the Yule log, the tree and Santa himself. I rediscovered the magic of the season and in so doing, reclaimed a part of my inner child who I had pushed aside to do what needed to be done for the sake of my siblings and forgotten about so many years before.

This year, I feel I've finally made my peace with the past and with Christmas which has always been a secular holiday that's more about fun, family and food than religion for me. I celebrate the longest night and the rebirth of the Sun as well as the triumph of the Oak king at Yule and celebrate Christmas with my family a few days later. I take pleasure in the sights, smells and sounds of the season; the silence of falling snow, the sounding of bells, the twinkling of lights, the smell of home made cookies. I've reclaimed the joyful magic of the season, hopefully this time, for good.

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P.S... Would anyone like to exchange cards with me this season? If you've read this whole thing, you clearly deserve something! :) Email me your snail mail address at artful.danni(at)gmail(dot)com and I'll send you a card! If you'd like to send me one in return, let me know in your email.

P.P.S... You'll forgive me if I annoy you all with far too many photos of Holiday crafts and goings on this year, won't you? I feel the need to share all the whimsy and wonder that I might create or stumble upon. :)