December 22, 2008

• If Christmas was every day, I’d kill myself

  
  

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  One of my coworkers asked if we didn’t wish it was Christmas everyday today…. I said I couldn’t answer because I’d probably be fired for language….
  
  I wish the holiday was done a month already. If only just to stop having to listen to the music. Bleh… I wouldn’t mind so much if it wasn’t the same stuff over and over again.
  
  So tired.
  
  Some of the customers are so nice, but then there’s always that one person who makes me wish I hadn’t come into work at all.
  
  I’ll post the writer’s choice questions next Monday. I just have to get up way too early every day this week to go looking through past offerings on the featured questions chatboard. In fact, I probably won’t post anything the rest of the week until Friday, so the rest of the holy days for this week are below.
  
  Everyone have a nice holiday no matter what you celebrate.
  

  
  
  

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  December 22
  

  
  On the sixth day of Saturnalia, Acca Larentia was given offerings as mother of the Lares (ancestors). This was called the Day of the Parentalia of Larentine Acca or the Laurentalia. She was also given the name Larunda or Lara.
  
  
  

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  The birth of the divine child, whether he bears the name of Horus, Osiris, Helios, Dionysus, Pryderi or Aeon, is celebrated at this time. The Greeks celebrated the birth of Demeter/Ceres at the winter solstice.
  
  During the solstice, a golden cow covered in a black veil was led around the temple of Helios seven times. The cow represents Isis and the ritual was called the seeking for Osiris. It commemorates the wanderings of Isis as she journeyed over the world mourning for his death and searching for the scattered body parts.
  
  
  

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  Running from the seventeenth to the twenty-sixth, the Ursids meteor shower peaks tonight. It is associated with Comet Tuttle.
  

  
  
  

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  December 23rd
  

  
  This is the seventh day of Saturnalia in honor of the Golden Age of Saturn and Ops.
  
  

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  Alban Arthuan, Winter Solstice. The Ogham Calendar is based upon the Coligny Tablet, a Gaelic-Celtic bronze tablet found in France in 1895 and dating to about 2000 years ago. The calendar started on the last quarter moon, the first after the autumn equinox, Samhain. Both this festival and the winter solstice were used to start lunar calendars in pre-Roman Europe and the Greek/Celtic orientated British Isles. Gwyl Nadolig, the Yuletide Tree Festival and Elder Festival, begins at sundown.
  
  

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  The Feast of Potential or the Secret of the Unhewn Stone is a modern pagan holy day. It is the only day in the Celtic tree Calendar not ruled by a tree or a corresponding Ogham letter. It represents the hidden potential of all things.
  
  

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  The Kalesh tribe of the Hindu Kush, celebrate Chaomos in their finest clothes. Lasting a week, it honors the demi-god Balomain, who counts the Kalesh every year and carries their prayers back to Tsiam, their mythical ancestral home.
  
  

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  The 8th day of Mechir was the Festival of the Great Heat, and a Feast Day of Hathor. 
  

  
  
  

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  December 24th
  

  
  The last day of Saturnalia corresponded with the Roman festival of Acca Larentis, a day sacred to the goddess Laurentina, mother of the lares and a mother goddess who watched over the dead and seed corn. Tonight is known as Modraniht, or Mother Night. Inscriptions from Roman times found in Germany, Holland and Britain honor groups of female beings generally referred to as ‘the mothers.’ These female deities are associated with fertility and protect hearth and home. The Juvenalia is a day for the young. This holiday was created by Caligula and added to Saturnalia.
  
  

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  The Finns set out candles at graves to light the path of their ancestral spirits as they make their yearly visit home.
  

  
  
  

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  Decmeber 25th
  

  
  The birth of many dying solar savior-gods (Osiris, the Syrian Baal, Attis, Helios, Apollo, Dionysus, Balder, Frey) was celebrated on this day. Isis gave birth to Horus at this time, and this is also the nativity of Mithra honoring his mother, Spenta Armaiti. Myrrha was changed into a tree, and while in that state, she gave birth to her son Adonis. According to Roman tradition this was Dies Natalis Solis Invictus, “the day of the birth of the undefeated sun,” a Mithraic cult. A festival was held in honor of the birth of the son of the Babylonian queen of heaven. In Semitic lands she was a form of Astarte.
  
  

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  This is the feast of Frau Holle, a Germanic weather goddess.
  
  

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  Several of the ceremonies of the Saturnalia continue in our modern Yuletide celebrations. Temples were decorated with greenery. Holly was used by the early Roman Christians to decorate churches and dwellings at this time, but the tradition was derived from earlier practices. Pagan Romans would send their friends holly-sprigs with wishes for their health and well being. The evergreens for Yuletide decorations were holly, ivy, mistletoe, bay, rosemary, and green branches of the box tree”.
  
  

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  Yule has many names in many lands. To the Druids and Celtic tribes, it was Nodlaig, An Nodlaig, La Nodlag, or Nodlaig Day. Yule. Jul or Jol is a Gothic word signifying a sumptuous treat, and the month of January was called Giuli (the Festival) by the Saxons. The festival of the Sun at the winter solstice ushered in the New Year’s sun. To the Saxons, it was Gehul, ‘the Sun-feast’, for the Danes, Juul, the Swedes called it Oel, in Breton, it was Heol (the sun), and for the Welsh it was Hal. The word Yule is derived from an old Norse word Iul, meaning a wheel, and the symbol of a wheel is still used to mark Yuletide.
  
  The ash is the wood of the world-tree, Yggdrasil, with its roots knotted in Hell and its boughs supporting Heaven. Beneath Yggdrasil sit the Norns or Nornir, Urth (past), Verdandi (present), and Skuld (future). Like the Greek and Roman Fates, they sit spinning the events of human life. Nearby is the spring of Urd from which the Norns draw water and clay every day. They sprinkle this on Yggdrasil to keep its branches from wither and decay.
  
  The Yule log was chosen of green ash wood and cut before Yule. In Devon, a bundle of ash sticks were bound together with nine ash-bands. The us of nine, or thrice three, ash-bands may be an indirect reference to the Norns. Amidst much rejoicing, it was carried in on Yule Day or on Yule Eve. Sometimes it was sprinkled with corn or dragged in with a girl seated upon it. A new fire was made, and the log was kindled with the last fragments of the previous log, kept throughout the year for this purpose.
  
  The mistletoe sprig has a long history of use, perhaps older than the Yuletime tree. The traditional Kissing Bough or the Kissing Bunch was hung from the ceiling with a ring of candles above and a ring of bright red apples below, perhaps hinting at fulfillment in the hour of promise. It was also said to represent the sun and the earth. On Yule Eve, the candles were lit in ceremony, and it became the center of the festival. It was lit again on Yule Day, and every evening thereafter till the Twelve Days were done. It hung from the middle of the ceiling, just high enough from the ground for a couple to stand or stoop and kiss beneath it.
  
  One of the oldest Yule traditions comes from its origins in Saturnalia. During that time, it was customary for all creatures to be equal. Charitable acts were not the exception, but the rule. Master and servant were on equal terms and people even acted with charity toward the lesser animals. Extra food was given to livestock and pets, and food was laid out for the birds or other wild creatures.
  
  

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  The 10th day of Mechir recalls the birth of Horus, the child of Isis. It is also the Day of elevating the Great Netjret (goddess) in all her names and manifestations. On this day, Wadjet went forth singing in Heliopolis.
  

  
  
  

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  • 6:43 pm
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