I'm Pagan, wheee! Dies natalis Solis invictus! Evohe! Evohe! (Loosely translated, "Hail! The birth of the unconquered Sun!) Yule is when the Sun is reborn to grow back from winter's old age & death to Summer's full, virile strenght. Light gaining over darkness, the renewed promise of Spring, Persephone returns from the Underworld trailing flowers behind Her... all that good stuff.

For me, coming from a rather messed up & continuously broke family, 'Christmas' wasn't about presents. It was about the stories - Santa Claus, Frosty the Snowman, the Island of Lost Toys, Dunderklumpfen, Charlie Brown & that pathetic little tree. It was about making weird little holiday crafts & practicing for the yearly Christmas pageant in school, before it became politically incorrect.

So now, as a grown up, I've carried my expectations over from childhood - I don't expect gift-giving or holiday get-togethers, and I'm happier w/out them. Not having kids is even better because I don't have to battle other people's conceptions about what the holiday is & what it isn't. I send everyone I know a card or an e-mail to let them know I'm thinking about them, and I get to make a buttload o' overtime because everyone wants time off & I am more than willing to work on Christmas & New Years, and have every year for the past 12.

And at home it's all about bringing in the fresh pine boughs & pinecones & strings of cranberries & popcorn to put out for the birds, cleansing the house & setting a candle in an eastern window so the Sun can find His way home on Yule morning.

The only problem I have is that technically Hallowe'en is really my religious New Year, but the calendar Dec 31/Jan 1 has special meaning to me as a 'new year' because New Year's Eve is my birfday.