As the days continue to darken and the chill in the air creeps into our bones, we look for ways to warm up our homes and our spirits! Let’s make some DIY Winter Solstice and Yule decorations! Gather your family and close friends and create that Yule Log you’ve always wanted to do. You’ll find it much more memorable and enjoyable. These old Yule traditions can also be embarked on with the following ceremony.
Yule Decorations
Create some natural ornaments. Take some flour and water and make little decorations. Once they’re dry, you can paint them with beautiful eclectic colours or very earthy colours. In the dough, you can mix herbs or resin that you like. Add things that will add protection, happiness, and financial stability, helping you release fear.
Yule celebration will help you with fertility, new beginnings, and fresh starts. Whatever you feel appropriate, you can make each ornament its little magical spell.
Once you’re done decorating it, you can carve or paint a runic symbol. Add some magical symbols that you feel will incorporate all their symbolic magic into that one ornament.
Then you can decorate your tree, garland, or home with these magical Yule decorations. You can also bring in some dried pinecones, apples or orange slices that you dry yourself and hang around your house as part of your way of decorating with nature.
Yule’s favourite plants, herbs, and flowers
Yule Logs, Decorations, Holiday Blessings — 3 things to make the season bright! Tag someone who you'll share the love with.Click To Tweet
Sun plants like mistletoe, balsam, fir, and dried Summer herbs contain warmth and light. When witches prepare their houses for Yule, they do so from the doorway inward, inviting the light inside.
We decorate mantles and doorways with bunches of dried summer herbs, evergreen boughs, and red, green, black or gold Witches cords.
The evergreen holds green colours and sunlight all year. It reminds us that life is always renewable. Our ancestors brought an evergreen tree inside to ensure that there would be light even throughout darker winter times.
Yule log ashes, mistletoe, holly, pine cones and needles, oak leaves, birch, fir, hazel bark, ivy, sandalwood, elder, comfrey, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, chamomile, myrrh, frankincense, sunflower, wintergreen, apple leaf and dried apple (Source)
How to Make a Yule Log
Make a Yule Log at the beginning of December, and use it as a centrepiece. Enjoy it before it’s burned in the ceremony. You can do many different ceremonies and practices around a Yule Log. Do what you are comfortable with. Do your research or make something up that you feel drawn to do.
'Tis the season for Yule Logs, Decorations, Holiday Blessings — let's spread the joy to everyone this year!Click To TweetEach type of wood has different magical and spiritual qualities. You should burn log from a particular tree to achieve the desired effect. Choose Birch for fertility, Aspen for spiritual understanding, Pine for a year of prosperity, and Mighty Oak for strength and wisdom.
When you create a log, ensure it’s clean and dry before you bring it inside. Some people like to remove the bark before taking it into their homes.
You can collect some pine pinecones, cinnamon sticks and things of the like. You can make a string of dried cranberries or even pomegranate seeds. Leave some room for extra ribbon or spaces for your candles so that you can illuminate your Yule Log.
Celebrating With Your Yule Log
Get your whole family involved in creating your Yule Log. Sit around the table or counter space. Let everyone set their intentions for the New Year as they place their decorations on the log.
When the time comes to hold the Yule traditions ceremony for the Yule log burning, ensure everyone who helped craft it is present. If you have a fireplace, you can do this indoors or gather outside and make a bonfire.
Circle yourselves around the fire, place the log to burn and set those intentions free. According to Yule traditions, everyone should remain present until the wood is burnt all the way down. You can save a little bit for the next year. You can sing carols around it, hold hands and dance clockwise. Do whatever you feel is right to do.
” The Yule log cracked in the chimney,
And the Abbot bowed his head,
the flamelets flapped and flickered,
But the Abbot was stark and dead.”
H.W. Longfellow ‘King Witlaf’s Drinking Horn (1848) (Source)
Yule traditions are all about the community coming together during times of darkness, so keep a positive atmosphere and attitude. Read more about Yule Traditions: Smudge Sticks and Yule Blessings >>>
No better time to cozy up around the Yule Log, bring out your best decorations, and share the Holiday Blessings!Click To Tweet