The Wheel of the Year

• 
  A time to honor ancestors and the life cycle. If you’ve ever done genealogy research, or if you’ve had a loved one die in the past year, this is the perfect night to celebrate their memory.
  
• 
  If you want to celebrate Samhain in the Celtic tradition, spread the festivities out over three consecutive days. You can hold a ritual and feast each night. Be flexible, though, so you can work around trick-or-treating schedules!
  
• 
  This is a good time for us to look at wrapping up the old and preparing for the new in our lives. Think about the things you did in the last twelve months. Have you left anything unresolved? If so, now is the time to wrap things up. Once you’ve gotten all that unfinished stuff cleared away, and out of your life, then you can begin looking towards the next year.
  
• 
  A time to wrap up the old and prepare for new things. The earth is slowly dying around us and this marks the cycle of life. Take stock and look at things you want closure, termination with or resolution. This is the end of the last twelve months (Celtic calendar) and a time to start anew.
  
• 
  Beginning at sunset on October 31^st celebrates and have feasts for 3 nights to honor the dead, your ancestors and to have closure with the last twelve months.
  
• 
  Burn Incense: Copal, sandalwood, mastic resin, sweet grass, wormwood, mugwort, sage, myrrh or patchouli
  
• 
  Use any of the above customs to create new traditions, feasts or rituals to honor your heritage.
  

Christmas is the Christian name for Winter Solstice or Midwinter. Yule is another name for Winter Solstice.

The solstice was a special moment of the cycle of the year as astronomy directed many events and traditions during ancient times. Communities were not guaranteed to live through winter and lived off of the work of the previous months. Starvation was common in winter between January and April, also known as the famine months. In temperate climates, the midwinter festival was the last feast celebration, before deep winter began. Most cattle were slaughtered so they would not have to be fed during the winter. Wine and beer made during the previous months was fermented and ready for drinking. Winter solstice is the start of the solar year and concepts of the birth or rebirth of sun gods are central to this celebration. Most of the customs, lore, symbols, and rituals associated with "Christmas" actually are linked to Winter Solstice celebrations of ancient Pagan cultures.

• 
  In old Europe, it was known as Yule, from the Norse, Jul, meaning wheel. Today, many people in Western-based cultures refer to this holiday as "Christmas” but its roots are Pagan.
  
• 
  Emperor Aurelian established December 25 as the birthday of the "Invincible Sun" in the third century as part of the Roman Winter Solstice celebrations.
  
• 
  Shortly thereafter, in 273, the Christian church selected this day to represent the birthday of Jesus, and by 336, this Roman solar feast day was Christianized.
  
• 
  January 6, celebrated as Epiphany in Christendom and linked with the visit of the Magi, was originally an Egyptian date for the Winter Solstice.
  
• 
  Mistletoe, which was sacred because it mysteriously grew on the most sacred tree, the oak, was ceremoniously cut and a spray given to each family, to be hung in the doorways as good luck. To hang it over a doorway or in a room was to offer goodwill to visitors. Kissing under the mistletoe was a pledge of friendship. Mistletoe is still forbidden in most Christian churches because of its Pagan associations, but it has continued to have a special place in home celebrations.