pagans: Ideas for upcoming holiday season

[Arduinna]

For those celebrating Yule, Winter Solstice, Saturnalia ect....

Any great ideas for sun decorations? I have looked and looked, but to no avail. Last year supposedly target sold a string of sun lights but I didn't make it to my store before they sold out.

What about sun ornaments for decorating yule trees or what have you??

Let's get ready to welcome the returning sun. Gotta get started early on those crafts, I've already waited till the last miniute to start this thread.

[frodo]

there's a sun god,
he's a fun god,
Ra! Ra! Ra!:LOL

i mentioned this on the crafts board: last year my son and i made little manos cortunas or horned god signs out of baker's clay and painted them gold. we used hand-shaped cookie cutters and bent the middle two fingers and the thumb down on each hand before baking. we poked a hole in each "wrist" with a drinking straw to tread red ribbon through. they look pretty spiffy. we also did silver "fig hands" (thumb between first and second fingers) for the goddess, but they don't look as cool, and i made some "gingerbread" solar lion cookie ornaments.

gold ball ornaments seem like pretty good sun symbols to me. and so do gold "snowflakes" if you can find them. we found a couple leaping stag ornaments at a dollar store, too. those are very nice. amd i made wire-wrapped quartz crystal "icicles".

at a mccrory's dollar store i managed to find little grape-vine pentacles! i hung a quartz crystal from the center of each one and hung them with my cheap fake pine garland.

my dad actually gave us our yule log. it's a birch log with 3 holes drilled in it, in which we place green, gold and red candles. we put fake non-flamable candle wreathes around each candle.

i usually use all-gold or gold-and-red giftwrap for solstice gifts. and, as i mentioned in the "fed up with christmas" thread, instead of stockings, the kids have plastic cauldrons, symbolic of the goddess' abundance, that they use for all 8 sabbats.

you can put electric candles with amber bulbs in the windows, but we usually save the electric candles for imbolc. i'm trying to remember what else we did. it was all shoved under the bed in boxes when we moved, and i was too preggers to organize, so i don't even know what's there.

blessings,

[khrisday]

I noticed today in the Lillian Vernon catalog that they had a set of 45 sun/star/snowflake ornaments made of straw painted gold for $10. It's a great price and they looked really neat-o, bet ya could make them if ya tried to.
http://www.lillianvernon.com/webapp/...6008&addOn=211

They also have ornaments of the zodiac
http://www.lillianvernon.com/webapp/...7603&addOn=211

[MarsupialMama]

I don't even know where to begin with these holidays! I've looked for books, but I've only found story books that weren't very helpful.
How do you ladies celebrate?:

[khrisday]

Have you read Circle Round?
It really has the best collection of family friendly ideas for the sabbats that I have found, as well as myths and storied that are appropriate for each season. There is also a series of books published by Llewellyn for each of the sabbats which have the history, symbolism, mythology, and ideas for each sabbat. (amazon has them) We usually just pick out a couple of things that are meaningful to us and read a myth or story.

[Arduinna]

I agree with Khris, if you are celebrating the Sabbats, Circle Round is a great resource especially if you are specifically looking for crafts and recipes and stories. Definately a modern Goddess Spirituality focus.

Good history books are the best source for the info on festivals celebrated by the pagans of the past.

[MarsupialMama]

Do know the name of the auther of Circle Round? I've checked at the libraries and nothing has come up. But I can always check again.

[Arduinna]

The full title of the book is : Circle Round~ Raising Children in Goddess Traditions by Starhawk, Diane Baker and Anne Hill.

They have it at Amazon if you want to read the reviews. I can't remember if they have sample pages available to read on this one.

HTH

[MarsupialMama]

Some questions......

What do you do for Yule/Winter Solstis?

I'm having some of my more spiritual family over for Yule, but I have no idea what I'm going to do with them!

Being new at this, I'm not sure I know that much myself. My Brother is a pastor/worship leader and he & his wife don't have aclue about "this Pagan stuff" so I wanted to do some things that would be explanitory.



Thanks guys!

[khrisday]

What about reading a myth about the death/rebirth of the sun (you could even draw a paralel to the Christmas story)? Singing some songs (I love the one from Circle Round and Sing, which can be done as a round- or the Pagan Carols that were posted here), and making some sun decorations or food?

We just discovered a book at the library called Sun Bread that is an excellent storybook to go with Yule. Now my kids want to make sun bread for Yule.

[shawna]

Thanks Khris for the links!!!

OK, I bought those sun lights from Target a while back and got them out last night and they are dorky. DD loved "em, so they are in her room now. We have a fairy tree, so those lights would have taken over.

This year we are incorporating stuff from Circle Round, but other than that, we will celebrate the way we always have, but be inclusive to all religions that have meaning at this time. DD loves doing crafts, so I figure it would be a great time to learn about the different myths.

[MamaSoleil]

I won't be getting Circle Round for two weeks...but I'm looking forward to getting it...I found some stories online...I was thinking of asking a friend to draw pictures to go along with it...
I like the idea of making ornaments with bakers clay...so I think that'll be our project for my next days off!!!

Mamasoleil

[karen ann]

Another good book besides Circle Round is Celebrating the Great Mother: A Handbook of Earth-Honoring Activities for Parents and Children by Cait Johnson & Maura D. Shaw. It has a lot about celebrating the different seasons and pagan holidays. Each holiday season has craft-type activities and a recipe.

My favorite Winter Solstice tradition growing up was decorating the log. As little kids, we'd use found feathers and leaves, pinecones and acorns, homemade paper cutouts, yarn, pasta, etc. to glue onto the big Yule log.

My sister always said her favorite part was when we turned on every light in the house (including flashlights, refrigerator light, TVs and candles) and opened all the doors and windows on the solstice to bring back te sun.

[marchmom19]

here are the links to the two books mentioned here if anyone is interested. Thanks for sharing this topic...I find it intriguing...going to learn more about this as its all new to me.

celebrating the great mother handbook
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...glance&s=books

circle round
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...glance&s=books

[mrzmeg]

I'm late, but just found this thread.
I wanted to post that the American Atheists online store (funny, I know) has some great solstice stuff, including a sun tree topper.
http://www.atheists.org/cgi-bin/WebS...link--seasonal

[Susana]

Melanie
Thank you for that link! I have been all over the place looking for a colorful children's Solstice book and they have one!
I also about died over the Albert Einstein Solstice greetings cards-I may have to have those....

[sugarbeth]

Check out our Solstice cards for this year...ha ha ha!
http://www.shutterfly.com/osi.jsp?i=...21b30fb38f844b

beth

[Susana]

LOL, love that card Beth! That's cute!

[joyfulliving]

Not strictly Pagan but...

I've always been searching for a way to tie together our Yule celebrations and our Christmas celebrations and I think I've found it!!!

On December 13th is Lucia Day or the feast of Santa Lucia (Sweden and originally Italy Patron Saint of Milan). She has both Christian and Pagan ties. She is the celebration of the return of the light and of giving to the poor and needy. One book i read said the celebration on December 13 (with Lucia Coffee, cookies and candles - rising before the dawn for this first celebration.) should not be a l*little Christmas* rather a break in the holiday celebrations to remember this season as a celebration of the spirit rather than the Shooping Mall." i think we'll *prepare* for Lucia Day by going through our belongings, finding what we are ready to pass on and donating them to charity, or to a family in need. We'll celebrate then on the day by giving these away and celebrating at home with candles in the darkness (coffee - of course) and cookies in the morning. I think I'll make some sun cookies. My son will certainly go nuts with joy if we begin the day with COOKIES!!!

This si a brand-new idea for our family so i haven't had much time to let the idea *mature*. Anyone else celebrate this?

Bright Blessings,
Joyfullving

[Arduinna]

You guys have some great ideas :-)!!!!