Banishing Darkness or Why I Love the Winter Holidays

[loreleyjacob]

I love the winter holidays, all of them. This time of year reminds feels enchanting and wild, with Hannukah candles at home, Christmas lights in every window in downtown Haifa, and Eid al-Adha fires in the Carmel mountain villages.

I love fire, and my soul makes no distinction between the variants of the different religions in the area. All lights

Comments

[frualeydis]

Beautiful! Here, which even isn't very far north in Sweden it is only light between 9 am and 3 pm this time of the year and we really need the light. I guess that's why almost everybody had several electrical candlesticks with seven candles (gee, I wonder why? ;)) in their windows and usually also a star. I don't have the candlesticks and unlike everybody else I only have the star on when it's someone at home and awake, because it's such a waste of energy. But I like switching it on in the dark mornings when we're gettign ready to leave for school and work, to make it a little less dark. Even if it's a christian symbol.

Christmas, or "jul" as it's called in Sweden is actually a mostly secular holiday, since Sweden is a very secularized country, so it's very easy to combine all the traditions with paganism - especially if you work with the nordic gods. I think I may do that on Christmas eve this year. The solstice is reserved for wiccan coven-work, but I think that I will invite the nordic gods to our traditional swedish "jul" celebration this year.

/Eva