The History of Yule Celebrations and Christmas Trees
Do you ever wonder why you have certain traditions that you follow? Why do you decorate green artificial Christmas trees every year? Why do you buy presents for all your friends and family? Why do you have certain foods that you eat during this time of year? Many Christmas traditions have been borrowed from Yule. This is a holiday that actually predates the Christmas holiday by thousands of years. Yet, many of the customs that we use during the Christmas season are going to be variations of what they did thousands of years ago. This includes even decorating green artificial Christmas trees, though back then they would do boughs of evergreen trees.
The Importance of Keeping Yule Traditions Alive with Modern Celebrations
The traditions that we take from Yule, aside from green artificial Christmas trees that are replicas of what they would have done, include:
– The feast that we have at Christmas time. Back then, they had a midwinter feast that lasted for 12 days!
– The use of mistletoe. However, the Celts believed that mistletoe had healing powers and was good for warding off evil spirits…which is where we get the hanging of the mistletoe.
– Santa is a depiction of the Old Man Winter in the Norse traditions. Old Man Winter, or Odin (The Norse God) would go from house to house and he was depicted as having a long white beard. Taking this even a step further, the children would leave their shoes filled with sugar and hay for Odin’s eight-legged horse.
When you really take the time to look into the traditions that we have and how they have changed, it is often surprising to see just how much of this is from ancient times. While we may no longer have a 12-day long feast or put out sugar and hay, we still do similar things that are reminiscent of these times.
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