Forgive my ignorance, but what's Yule?

[beachj]

Hey Everyone,
I'm new... I know Yule is some sort of Pagan holiday, but id like to know more about it. Perhaps I'll google it after I post this message. I grew up in a christian home. We always celebrated Christmas. We had a christmas tree, and decorations ect. People who are non christian that I know celebrate christmas and have christmas trees. Once as a kid we had a jewish family live next door. They celebrated Hanika. I don't know if they had a honika bush or not. So I take it A Yule tree is like a christmas tree?
:)

[beachj]

Ok I'm dumb, I found a realy good awnser here.
As it seems, the christians prety much stole the holiday from the Pagans. Interesting... So what's everyones traditions about it? I know traditions vary from family to family, person to person.
Again sorry for asking a question that i could find the awnser on my own.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yule

[Tzhebee]

Like you said, Yule is one of the Pagan holidays. You can Google it and get a ton of information on it, or you can check Here (http://www.mysticwicks.com/forumdisplay.php?f=97) This was a class taught in the COT on these forums. It gives a great overview of the pagan holidays. :D

[Ron]

Lol! Chanuka bush! I like it!

Yule's cool. But I prefer to call it Winter Solstice. Yule is a creative name from a specific tradition. Solstic is a little more of an open name.

[David19]

I'm not sure but i think Yule was only celebrated by Norse people, no others since other people had other holidays. But others might know more.

[LostSheep]

Ok I'm dumb, I found a realy good awnser here.
As it seems, the christians prety much stole the holiday from the Pagans. Interesting...
Interesting that so many of the things we take for granted at christmas - the tree, mistletoe, holly, the reindeer probably, Santa himself i wouldn't be surprised, are blatantly pagan when you think about it. The early Christian church, of course, because they didn't really know when Jesus was born, decided to take the date of the nearest convenient pagan festival and use that because people would be celebrating then in any case ... much as they did when they decided to put churches on sacred pagan sites really.

[StarEyedShelly]

Like you said, Yule is one of the Pagan holidays. You can Google it and get a ton of information on it, or you can check Here (http://www.mysticwicks.com/forumdisplay.php?f=97) This was a class taught in the COT on these forums. It gives a great overview of the pagan holidays. :D

Thanks for putting that link up! I've been meaning to learn more about all the holidays...:D

[mucgwyrt]

Interesting that so many of the things we take for granted at christmas - the tree, mistletoe, holly, the reindeer probably, Santa himself i wouldn't be surprised, are blatantly pagan when you think about it. The early Christian church, of course, because they didn't really know when Jesus was born, decided to take the date of the nearest convenient pagan festival and use that because people would be celebrating then in any case ... much as they did when they decided to put churches on sacred pagan sites really.
:hmmmmm: it's less that the church stole the holiday, and more that they chose to substitute pagan festivals with christian ones to make converting the heathen english easier; if they were going to carry on celebrating the festival anyway, they might as well christianise it and make it acceptable, you know? :)

[narleymarley03]

Thank you for posting the info from the past Wheel of the Year class. It's very good info. There is so much info on this site somtimes it's hard to take it all in or to know where to look. Thank you.