Wow, it took me a long time to realize I haven't blogged about our Yule night! I woke up pretty early today and was scrolling down pictures because I'm missing my little witch, who's away at his dad's for his Winter vacations (as everybody knows, so much I talk about it, lol!), when I stumbled upon these photos.
Yule is always a very special sabbath for us. It's when we decorate our altars with our little tree and ornaments I made years ago representing the Sun, the triple Moon and all the pagan symbols I treasure. These simple ornaments are images I printed and laminated, and there are also some ornaments that Lucas drew himself. They're old but we love them, and our favorite task is to hang them on a natural leafy branch while listening to cool Yule songs (or some rock'n'roll!). Here's his altar, all decorated, already with his gift and a love note I always write to him (on the left you see a tinfoil "gift" my mom gave him to eat after the ritual: his favorite chicken patty, lol!):
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Traditionally, every Yule we exchange little gifts handmade by ourselves. Usually Lucas will make me a natural "jewel" or ornament, like the year he made me a cute tropical snowman in cotton and sticks. This year, he made me a lovely necklace made with five long ivy leaves in a thin thread. The leaves ended up geting dry because he created it the previous week and hid it in his grandma's bedroom, but it was wonderful anyway, and I used it all day long - now it is proudly hanging by my computer's side.
Lucas loves when I make something in felt for him as a Yule gift, and I have already made him runes, bookmarks, a fire monster... This year, as I had saved for weeks his sketch for another little monster, I made it for him (sorry for the poor photo quality, back then my old camera was starting to get unstable before going totally kaput):
I wrapped it and placed it under his altar's Yule tree while he was at school, so he would find it when back home. He loved it and sleeps with it under his pillow. :o) Here we are with our gifts:
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Earlier that afternoon, I had posted on my Facebook wall about how Lucas decided making a protection potion to use in our evening Yule prayer, and as I was going to add my relatives names in his cauldron for a protection ritual, he suggested me to ask my friends if they wanted to have their names added to it. Several friends wanted to, and their names, relatives' and friends' were carefully written down in pieces of papers, folded and placed into his cauldron, where we would add a bit of his potion as well as his protective herbs I filtered and dried. My little witch loved this idea so much that we plan to do it at least once a month. You can see all the folded papers here:
In the evening, we made our simple ritual, with Lucas opening the circle as always, and lighting a special candle. We burned the papers in the cauldron, watching the wonderful flames dancing for a long time, asking Demeter, Brigid and Cernunnos to protect us all in strength, healing and health during the upcoming cold months:
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When the fire was over, we shared the delicious chicken patty, closed the circle, and our Yule night was over. We felt recharged and blessed for sharing another year honoring the gods together, and I, once again, felt blessed to see how naturally and happily connected my little witch is.
The morning after, I buried the ashes and the candle wax's remainings in the flower bed, to close the protective spell.