Pagans, help, Yule and children.

knithappens

Hello my fellow Pagans (which ever path you follow)

I will be celebrating yule this year very openly in my house. Although i am Pagan, i have not openly brought my children up this way, now i feel they are old enough to understand i want to involve them more if they wish too.

We have always had our own tradition on Yule of making sweet bread together and as we make it, we make wishes for the year to come, for ourselves and our loved ones, then we share the bread later, and we spend the time together as a family.

I have a great book called Circle round, which has some good ideas on how to introduce yule to your Children. But i just wanted to gather other ideas from fellow pagans, on what they do at Yule.

I know that Christmas has a lot of traditions that blend in. But i was just wondering what traditions you have specifically for Yule and this time of year.

Hapless_2

Erm, well we have always brought the children up to be pagan (none of the "they will choose when they get older" pagan parents, pagan kids). They open presents from the Alfather/Julnissen beginning on Jul (yule) and ending on 31st December (yule is not a 1 day celebration). We do things in a heathen way, staying away from the wiccan influences and those blessed bees:mad: !!

We have a tree, decorations, feasting food etc remembering to leave some out for the Tomte. We also ask the neighbours round to wassail the apple trees in the back garden with wassail bowl.

We ask the Aesir and Vanir to protect us through the approaching weather. Blodt to Thor, Skadi, Freyr, Frigga, Freya and Odin in particular at this time offering mead and meat, blood and bread.
Bringing in Mistletoe to honour Frigga and ask her to protect the children in particular through the worsening weather.

Pumpkin_Pie_5

Mostly we eat:D

We get up and go to the park to watch the sunrise with a glass of mead to welcome the sun back

We have no kids but some pagan friends like to re-enact the Holly King vs the Oak King (you can find some good versions on the web).

For us Yule is a time for reflection and for thinking up plans for the new year so we go round the table to talk about what went well for us and what didn't and what seeds we plan to sow for the new year!

Oh we also go wassailing as we have 2 apple trees:D

This year's going to be odd for us as we are having friends over on Christmas Day for the first time ever so I think I'm not going to stretch Yule to have the 25th too:rotfl:

wbk666

Hapless wrote: »

(none of the "they will choose when they get older" pagan parents, pagan kids).

and if they chose another path when they do get older?
im just curios, i have no religious "issues" either way, i'm just wondering
if you would tolerate it as most Christians normally would
or be a bit more forceful as muslims tend to be.

knithappens

wbk666 wrote: »

and if they chose another path when they do get older?
im just curios, i have no religious "issues" either way, i'm just wondering
if you would tolerate it as most Christians normally would
or be a bit more forceful as muslims tend to be.

Hapless has the right to his/her opinion, whether i agree or not, I am of the school allow the child to choose, especially as i come from a family with a Muslim father, pagan mother lol.

So back to the topic.

Any other suggestions welcome.

knithappens

Pumpkin_Pie wrote: »

Mostly we eat:D

We get up and go to the park to watch the sunrise with a glass of mead to welcome the sun back

yes we mainly eat eat eat. I cant wait this year has hubby as been away with work at this time for the past couple of years so we will finally be able to celebrate together as a family.

Always watch the sun rise in the garden, easier with my 2 lazy kids lol

Hapless_2

Thank you for that lilmrsmullen! I would comment on it but this is not the thread to do it on and that subject is more for discussion time.

wbk666

lilmrsmullen wrote: »

Hapless has the right to his/her opinion, whether i agree or not, I am of the school allow the child to choose, especially as i come from a family with a Muslim father, pagan mother lol.

So back to the topic.

Any other suggestions welcome.

i wasnt denying them the right, in fact if you read my post you'll see i was just asking what their opinion was.

hmmm seems we now know yours;)

enjoy your life:beer:

Spendless

Hi -can't add much to your discussion, but thought some of you with young children might be interested to know in an episode of Little Bear, he goes off to celebrate the winter solstice. Know a member on another forum liked being able to show her child a tv programme which showed something they celebrated so thought I'd share. Can't remember which sky channel it's on, but will edit the post when I find out.

knithappens

Spendless wrote: »

Hi -can't add much to your discussion, but thought some of you with young children might be interested to know in an episode of Little Bear, he goes off to celebrate the winter solstice. Know a member on another forum liked being able to show her child a tv programme which showed something they celebrated so thought I'd share. Can't remember which sky channel it's on, but will edit the post when I find out.

thats cool thanks.

Spendless

I found this review of it
http://www.amazon.ca/gp/cdp/member-reviews/A1MFCGA08B0H3T