Sharing Our Yule and Christmas Traditions

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Whether you celebrate Yule or Christmas, today I wanted to share some fun holiday traditions that we love to partake in at this time of year.

In our family we celebrate a mixture of a traditional Christmas and a Pagan inspired Yule.

I grew up in a Catholic family, but religion never felt right to me. I was always called to the earth for my spirituality and sought comfort in the wilderness over a church. But traditions die hard. As I establish new traditions for our family, the traditions from my up bringing shine through.

Some of our favourite traditions involve spending time together as a family. We love being together and celebrating life as a family during this time of the year.

Holiday Feasting

Christmas and Yule traditions would not be the same without the food.

Growing up, my family always had a potluck style dinner on Christmas eve and then Christmas Day brunch after mass and a big Christmas dinner with a turkey and all the fixings. My husband’s family always had a large Christmas dinner as well.

Now that our extended families live 4000km away from us, we have simplified things.

I take the favourite foods that my aunts and uncles always brought to Christmas Eve and we have a light dinner, usually while watching a movie on Christmas Eve. Some of our favourite Xmas eve foods include veggie squares and cheese dreams. I always made Deviled Eggs for the potluck so I tend to continue that tradition and make those as well.

On Christmas Day, I will make a turkey with all the fixings. The gigantic turkey that my Grandfather used to make has been replaced with a more manageable size and I do not need to start cooking at 5 am.

This year I considered making a Yule log cake to decorate, but I have not found the time to do so yet. If you have a yule log cake recipe that you love, please share it with me in the comments!

Winter Light Displays

On cold winter nights, when there is snow glistening under the moonlight, we love to go out and look at the winter light displays.

Whether we travel by foot, or stay warm in the car, we love to explore the neighbourhood and see how different families have decorated their homes. There is so much variation on the styles of lights and decorations, it really is fun to see.

One very special light display is put on by our local zoo. They spend weeks putting up thousands of strands of lights and transforming the zoo into a spectacular light show.

See footage from this year’s Zoolights in our Yule Traditions video.

https://youtu.be/TXerXRoWamE

Some days it is too cold to go out and look at lights. On those days, we love to see the winter displays that businesses put on.

The mall close to us always puts on a fantastic display. Lots of lights and interactive exhibits for the children to enjoy, no matter what holiday you celebrate.

Usually on these trips, we also take advantage of the shorter lines while other children are in school and get our photo taken with Santa.

The Yule Log

One tradition that we have started fairly recently is to burn the Yule log.

We do a lot of camping in the summer months, but always like to keep an extra piece or two of firewood to have a Yule fire around the winter solstice.

This is a wonderful yule tradition that I always enjoy doing with my boys. It is so much fun to get out into nature and sit around a campfire. Because of the chinooks coming off the mountains, we never know if we will have snow or not while doing this, but a campfire surrounded by snow is always so beautiful.

To make it fun for the kids, we typically bring marshmallows and hot dogs. Again, more feasting for our yule traditions!

Our Yule Tree

Our tree is one of favourite yule traditions. Whether you call it a Yule tree or a Christmas tree, to us it symbolizes the life that holds strong through the cold winter months. The lights represent the sun shining and brightening the long, cold winter days.

Our tree is decorated with gifted and handmade ornaments, all of which have a story to tell and are filled with love and positive energy.

This year we added a bead and button garland. We have been collecting beads and buttons for a while and this year we were inspired to string them together for our tree. In the past, we have strung popcorn and cranberries, but that only lasts a season and can be difficult for little hands. This garland worked out so beautifully and we will have it to admire for many years to come.

What are some of your favourite Christmas or Yule traditions?