Yule: A Celebration of Light and Warmth

I was deeply disappointed by this book. There are misspellings, inconsistent use of type, and reversed or incorrect words. The bulk of the book is recipes and make-your-own-tradition ideas that still partake heavily of Christian symbolism and practice. The author's sources are academically and intellectually dubious, and out of date. For example, she cites (and misspells the name of) an encyclopedia of mythology in its 1968 edition. The historical information cited is often inaccurate. The attitude toward Christians and practitioners of other religions alike is smarmy and patronizing. Egregiously stupid errors include a statement to the effect that the early Christians inserted the word "Son" in the name of their new holiday because it show more would make people think of the "Sun" god. Duh-uhhhh--these people weren't speaking English, and "son" and "sun" are not homophones in any languages spoken in that region then or now. This one of the most poorly written non-fiction works I've ever read, and there was no reason it couldn't have been good. One star is too high a rating. show less

This is part history/social studies on Yuletide celebrations, part Wiccan rituals, and part festive decorating, cooking guide.

The Winter celebrations "history" did lean very Christian/Western Europe. The author begins by saying that Winter celebrations, solstice, is celebrated the world over, but then didn't really have much discussion not based on Western Europe and Egypt. Traditions from various places around the world are brought in a bit with the Days of December section and Holidays around the world section, but probably should have been more in the initial section.

Some points of the book are a little... obvious? Like the beginning of a chapter discussing forgetting a gift and suggesting a gift card *then* went on to suggest show more crafty gifts, but some of those would take a fair amount of time, effort for salvaging last minute forgetfulness. So, I think the editing could be a little better and turned it around to be like: here are some crafty gifts, then end with- if you have run out of time and energy, there's always gift cards which are *fine*.

Anyway, overall, I enjoyed the book and would consider pulling it out next Yuletide season. It's not great, it could have been better. However, I enjoyed it. I'm not Wiccan but I'm considering purchasing to get me into the spirit for Winters and give ideas for crafts and treats. show less

Interesting book that looks at the origins of the Yule celebration (as well as other ‘winter holiday’ celebrations,) different cultural variations over the years and the meanings behind the rituals, origins of some of our modern-day practices. Also has sections for rituals, recipes, potions, decorations, etc. and another chapter on how to make your own Yule celebration uniquely yours, gives ideas on how to start new traditions of your own, etc. Although a lot of this is “nothing new,” to me, I did glean some interesting information and quite enjoyed the book; will be keeping it on my reference shelf and will have to plan to dig it out again next year, probably in November, to allow for a bit more planning time for some of the show more neat ideas included. show less