It's the most wonderful time of the year.....

I feel like this year I am extra excited about Christmas... Yule.... Winter Solstice.... New Year..... New Moon.... all of the above! I wrap the whole lot up into one festive bundle, because to me it's all about new beginnings and celebrating the growing light of the sun. It is terribly dark in Dorset right now. The sun goes down at 4pm, and the little sunlight there is has to fight its way through layers upon layers of knitwear. It's cold. I know that right now it is only going to get colder and darker. But after the Winter Solstice, the days will actually increase in daylight hours, and by the end of February, the temperature will actually be getting warmer! And there will be little flowers! And buds of fresh leaves on the trees! All we have to do is hold on and wait it out... ok, it's not like we're in a blizzard, it's doubtful we'll get any snow before the new year, and even then it's just a light dust on coastal towns. But when the beach is glittering white, wow, that's magical! That's something to look forward to! Glitter is what it's all about. Glittering frost and snow, glittering lights and tinsel, glittering stars in the cold night sky, glittery nails and glittery clothes....

Well, as you can see, my decorations are up. I'm ready for Christmas, or whatever you want to call it. It's not so much about Jesus for me, it's more about the lovely sun which we revolve around. I love learning about the history of stuff like this, so I've been reading up, refreshing my memory, and I made a little video about it. We don't know much at all about how the season was celebrated in western or northern Europe, but we know that down south the Romans celebrated Saturnalia with banquets, gift-giving and partying. The popularity of Saturnalia continued into the third and fourth centuries CE, by which point the Romans had come and gone in Britain. They left a legacy of roads, temples, and palacial villas behind, as well as Christianity, a new religion from the middle east. Christianity was pretty much a recluse in Britain, thriving in tiny remote monasteries, whereas the broader public were a polytheistic lot, with a growing Germanic influence. These people we call "Germanic" are an ethno-linguistic group who spread from northern Europe to Scandinavia and Britain. It's this lot who introduced the word "Yule" for the festive season which surrounds the Winter Solstice. To this day, Scandinavians consider Yule synonymous with Christmas. One theory is that the word Yule shares a common origin with the word "jolly", from Proto-Indo-European *gau- "to rejoice". So let's be merry, one and all, no matter what your religion, or lack thereof. Have a holly jolly Christmas!