Need advice from Pagan families re: holidays

[wytchywoman]

Hi All,
I apologize in advance as this will probably be long and rambling. I am pagan, have been for many years, specifically am an ecletic witch. I am not really raising my boys to be anything but they are allowed to participate in my rituals if they like and have always loved celebrating Yule with me. I have always prepared a special meal after my ritual and they got to open their presents from me on that day/evening.
The problem comes in that my family is all christian. Every holiday season it is kind of a given that we will celebrate christmas ( and by celebrating I mean very secularly, gifts, santa, turkey. etc...) This past christmas was an absolute fiasco and needless tosay we will not be celebrating the holidays in their entirety with family anymore. Given that we will not be traveling, I have been thinking a lot lately about Yule vs. Christmas. It seems stupid to celebrate both anymore seeing as we don't believe in that faith and won't have family here to prompt anything huge that day. My biggest problem though about cutting out christmas entirely is that my younger son is very programed into the whole christmas thing, by school and classmates and unwitting teachers, etc.... as far as he is concerned, santa comes on christmas eve and there is nothing else to it. I tried breaching the topic of santa coming on Yule night instead and he flipped. And BTW, he has autism too.
Am I being ridiculous about this? Should I just say screw it and continue to celebrate on a day that carries no meaning for me? Should I take a harball approach with my son and see if I can help him work through it? It is so difficult when you live in society where that whole holiday season is really about only christmas and maybe Hannakuh ( sp?) if you're lucky. I would love to know how those of you who don't celebrate christmas at all have dealt with the mixed messages an what not. TIA,

Michelle

[Theoretica]

I don't know if this helps, but Yule is our main holiday, family day, special time, the works. And Cmas is when santa comes!

Since they are close on the calendar it doesn't bother me at all. My kids know Yule is the reason for the season . Cmas isn't a big deal really, but the neverending santa issue is so prevelant in our culture that we've left it on cmas eve. It does spread out the holiday cheer a little too, and I'm liking the effect of having a 'real holiday' where we celebrate the light of the coming year, and a 'fun holiday' where santa brings stuff!

[CheapPearls]

I think you are going to have a harder time then I do, just because of the autism. I'm not sure what advice to give on that point but I can tell you what we do. We have 3 young boys and this was the first year that "Christmas" touched them. It was on TV, people in the stores asking "Are you ready for Santa?", etc. It was nuts. I'm sure it would have been worse if my oldest was in public school (we homeschool)

In November my oldest started with "Santa is going to bring me ..." Um no. We have never done Santa, even when we do the family Christmas thing. I just let him talk and pretty much ignored it. At other times, without being prompted by Santa talk, I told them stories about why Yule is important. They even got into reenacting the battle between the Holly and Oak Kings. They understand as much as they can about Yule but they also know about Christmas. There's no way of really hiding it so I tell them that everyone has their own way of celebrating and Yule is ours. Christmas came and went just like a normal day. They knew it was Christmas but there was no disappointment in the day. They know that the presents they got for Yule came from us, not Santa and that was that. I didn't need to deny anything, just focus on the more important parts. It worked out good for us.

[wytchywoman]

Thank you for your responses. I really like the idea of Yule being the "big" day for celebration and just having santa visit on christmas eve. I have considered the idea of not doing santa but it is so ingrained in my younger son that he would completely flip out. It just would never fly and I figure sooner or later I'll have to cave and burst his little SC bubble and then we can do away with xmas forever. Actually I think I will celebrate it in the way many others do, by going to the movies and eating chinese food, LOL. Thanks again,

Michelle

[wombatclay]

We're pagan and celebrate Yule as our "primary family holiday"... we start preparing on Dec 1st with a Yule calendar, we tell stories of Mother Holle and important Solstice themes, we volunteer in our community and make gifts for our family members/loved ones/animals. We do all sorts of special things leading up to Yule (finding and bringing home a Yule tree, decorating a tree outside for the birds, building a sacred Mother cave outside, lighting candles) and then have family traditions on the day. We open the gifts we've made for each other and focus on our immediate family.

However, we also celebrate Christmas in that we tell stories about St Nick (along the lines of giving anonymously, etc) and on Christmas Eve we hang up our stockings. Christmas morning we make a yummy brunch buffet and see what Santa brought in our stockings (generally a few small gifts, some fruit, art supplies) and open any gifts from extended family. It's more of a "social" day since we might call or visit friends and go out and since we're opening gifts from extended family the items are often a bit more commercial than our Solstice gifts.

And then, a little while later, we celebrate 12th Night and leave our shoes out for La Befana (Italian tradition)... the girls get an orange, a cookie, and a "gold dollar" (the Sacajawea dollar, plus it's got a mama & child motif!).

It draws out the holiday season so there is less stress/pressure along the way. And it avoids the sense of "that's it?" some people feel after a month of build-up ends in a few hours. It also lets us acknowledge the personal/religious holiday (Solstice), the social/extended family holiday (christmas), and the cultural traditions of our even more exteded family (12th night/Epiphany). Plus, it's fun!