Neo-Pagan Solstice Part 2: The Tree

Photographs by Raven, 2018

We have a Yule Tree. Calling it that is a good compromise between calling it a Christmas Tree and calling it a Solstice tree, seeing as variations on the name 'Yule' are used to refer to Christmas in many languages, and Yule is also what a lot of Neo-Pagans call the Winter Solstice. As I mentioned before, our household does Solstice out of faith, and Christmas out of tradition. The decorations are mostly gold for the returning light, red for the kinds of food that last into winter, and white/clear for the snow and ice of winter. For the most part, it is like the average Christmas tree, as Christmas trees are themselves of Pagan origin - the only difference with ours is that it has a few more deliberately solar decorations. Most people these days put up a tree as an entirely secular festive ornament, an element of tradition that may be divorced from its roots in some ways (much like the average 'live' tree in that respect...) but I think it is a beautiful thing that we keep doing them, and I love how many people use their trees to express themselves, or as a creative medium on which family traditions are built. As such, I would like to share with you all our tree. It's possibly a bit self-indulgent, but as the tree is probably one of my favourite things about the festive season, and this is my blog, here we are!

2011 Yule Tree, 

not sure who took the photos

We have had our Yule Tree since Raven and I have lived together, always topped with the radiant sun. I think I made a post about our Yule Tree in 2011, or at least intended to, because I found an old collage of the Yule Tree from when we still lived in the apartment! Raven and I have been together for a decade now, and I like how we have formed our own mini-traditions for our mini-family. Every year we have celebrated Christmas day with found-family, some of whom have strained family relationships and painful memories of the festive period like myself. Solstice has often been celebrated with the broad group of friends met through the Highland Open Circle. The Yule tree has glittered through all of that, a symbol of both festivals, and of Raven and I merging our ideas. 

2011 Solstice decorations. I think I took these photos

I have a second, smaller tree in my study, known as the 'Gothmas' tree or the 'Cryptmas' tree which is black, purple and silver with sklls, bones, black cats and tomb-stones, but it will get its own post as it is an entirely secular festive decoration - and very much an aesthetic suited to the main Gothic theme of this blog rather than a Pagan thing. 

The Yule Tree, 2017. My photo

The main difference between our tree and the average Christmas tree are the solar decorations. As well as gilded plaster decorations of the sun and moon, there is a large sun on the top of the tree instead of a star. I think it was actually manufactured as a starburst, but being gold and amber, and with so many radiating points, it certainly looks very solar.

Sun-burst tree-topper with gold & amber sparkles. 2017, by me

Glowing sun bauble, 2017, by me.

I am on the look out for more sun-themed decorations for our tree, especially gold ones. It is not, as is to be expected, the most popular motif among mainstream sellers of decorations, however gold decorations in general are pretty popular.Plain gold baubles can look pretty solar, as can translucent ones if they are the right texture and carefully illuminated - I think they are the most 'realistic' solar depictions on our tree. We also have the other kind of solar decoration, the sun-face design reminiscent of Sol made popular in medieval heraldry.  It's an image that hangs on our tree, but is also in the Solstice decorations around our house and on our altar, as visible on the altar post. 

Sun decoration. Photographed 2017

Sun bauble 2018, my photo.

I bought the sun, and it's twin - a gilded moon - secondhand on eBay. I buy a LOT of things secondhand, online on eBay, in charity shops, from Facebook sales groups, etc. mostly because it is cheaper, but also because it seems you find more unusual things, especially older things, if you shop in those sorts of places. I know folk are probably tired of hearing me yammer on about the environment, but it is very important to re-use the stuff we have already made, or recycle where possible, rather than constantly use up more and more of our natural resources to make new things by energy-intensive and polluting processes (it's also worth noting that some forms of recycling are high energy, too). If you are feeling crafty, there are plenty of craft projects for tree decorations that are also recycling projects; maybe next year I'll put some on my blog.

 Moon bauble, 2018? My photo.

We have a moon bauble as well as a sun one, because while we celebrate the returning sun and coming of warmer weather, we also celebrate the longest night and those cosy evenings indoors, the snow on the hills and importance of winter in the cycle of things. The balance is important, and although there are a lot of harsh things about winter weather, that harsh weather kills off harmful pests and parasites, the frost can be what triggers some plants to grow, and snow-sports are a big part of the local economy in some regions of the Highlands. Winter is not inherently a bad thing, just as summer is not inherently a good thing; they both have their benefits and also bring problems (eg. summer can bring drought, wild-fires, sunburn, heat exhaustion etc.). In my form of Paganism I try and celebrate the seasons as they come, and while there is always something hopeful about the returning light in darkness, sometimes it's important to appreciate that darkness too (a familiar mentality for Goths!). 

Star decoration chosen for the pentagram of ribbons and sunburst centre 

Our Yule Tree has decorations that aren't solar, like owls (getting a new owl each year has become a tradition in our household, too), a blown-glass witch, some skulls, lots of tartan and deer, a fuzzy wolf to represent our friend 'Sarge' and a lot of pine-cones, some glass, some real, as well as snowflakes and snowy things of various designs; it's a seasonal tree at its heart; the ever-green pine (in our case because it's plastic and thus literally can't die) decorated with symbols of winter, much like most festive trees... and unlike my Gothmas tree, which is more a touch of Hallowe'en in midwinter! But the Gothmas tree will get its own post next! 

Summer Solstice: Open Circle Ritual

I'm still working on my series of posts on the Wheel of the Year, used as a seasonal ritual framework by various modern Pagan/Neo-Pagan groups, including Wiccans and Druids. The celebration that is probably most famous as a Pagan holy day is the Summer Solstice. I attended more than one Summer Solstice celebration, and this post is about the one I attended as part of the Highland Open Circle/ It was a small private gathering at one of the member's home. 

Solstice Altar
Photo by Lynnie K

Midsummer is the celebration of the longest day - in the Northern hemisphere, this is June 21 or 22 (as our calendar year is imperfect in relation to the solar year, it is not always the same day). While Beltane is the start of summer, Midsummer is the season's peak. In Scotland, the warmest months are usually actually July and August, making Lammas, the next holiday, closer to summer's peak in terms of weather, but late June is pretty warm too. There's different terms for the Midsummer Solstice in different traditions and languages. I call it Midsummer's Night (quite traditionally English; you may recall the Shakespeare play) and it's linked with St John's Eve in much of the British Isles; a common case of a local holiday being linked with a Christian one. I've seen the Scottish Gaelic term for the holiday being Féill Sheathain, and the Druidic term is Alban Hefin (Light of Summer) and the Wiccan term, taken from the Anglo-Saxon, is Litha. Ancient cultures also had a significance for the Summer Solstice, as can be seen from the building of megalithic architecture aligned to the Summer Solstice, most famously at Stonehenge. We have comparatively little on the religion of the ancient pre-Roman Celts, let alone the cultures before that who built megalithic monuments; archaeological evidence can only tell of some of what happened physically, without the written word, it is difficult to interpret the meaning and mindset that accompanied the actions.

Solstice Altar. Photograph by Lynie Kutler

One of the most interesting things about the Open Circle is the diversity of traditions and backgrounds of our members. We're inclusive of many forms of occultism, witchcraft, Paganism, Neo-Paganism and pantheism/animism, so our celebrations tend to be a mixture of cultures and traditions reflecting the attendees' paths. Not everyone in the group is out as Pagan, so I can't comment too much about who believes what, but there are Norse Pagans, Wiccans, Druids, Chaos Magicians, traditional Witches, and even a Christian witch in the group, and we've had people from non-European traditions/non-Western traditions join from time to time, too. Our altar reflects a mixture of traditions, and also sometimes items that are souvenirs from the travels and experiences members have had that have influenced their spirituality, but aren't part of their tradition directly, or which are connected to the season we're celebrating. The gathering allows us to discuss our different experiences, and to have a collective altar that has elements that are deeply meaningful to all of us, as there is something special from each of us on it, and many things that become meaningful through their ritual use.

Elemental Ritual Masks and altar from above. Photo I took myself.

I brought the small sun plaque underneath the sun candle-holder at the front of the altar, and the elemental ritual masks. In many forms of Neo-Paganism, especially those that are Wiccan-derived, the Classical elements are honoured in Aristotle's form as Air, Earth, Fire, Water and Aether, or as it is more commonly termed 'Spirit'. In Wiccan ritual structure, part of the opening sequence is to call the elements, either to invoke spiritual entities seen as Guardians of the Watchtowers (a concept brought from the Golden Dawn occult framework, but simplified and altered to fit in Wiccan ritual), or as a way to acknowledge the different aspects of the natural world. Personally, I prefer the latter method. I made the masks for participants to better embody the elements they were honouring, and to take the self out of the equation a little for those who are nervous about speaking in front of a group. For the element of Fire, I painted a mask to look like flames, for the element of Water, I painted it to look like a tropical sea, using dimensional paint to make cresting waves for the hairline, eyebrows and nose, for the element of Earth I tried to make the mask look like geological strata, for the element of Air I painted it with shimmery silvery paint and then used more dimensional paint to make little clouds for the eyebrows, and for the element of Spirit (or 'Energy' in my practice) I painted it with metallic dimensional paint over purple, with metallic shimmer paint too, to try and make it look like lightning. You will see a sixth mask, this is a Nature mask I made for the Beltane ritual which I was asked to bring this Solstice too. 

Sun bowl , mirror plaque and orange candle. Photo taken by me.

As our ritual was indoors (it was predicted to rain), and the host does not have a fireplace, we had a large orange floral candle as our ritual centre rather than a bonfire. Many of our rituals have had an outdoor fire, especially as several of those who regularly host, myself included, have fire-pits. The fire or candle in the middle represents the sun, and remains lit for the whole of the ritual. It's ina nice big brass sun bowl for fire-safety reasons - candles have a tendency to melt and drip, and their wicks can shift. Always be careful when you use candles in your rituals. 

Gecko image next to the sun bowl. Photo taken by me.

It was nice to get together as a group - the Open Circle has been difficult to organise this year as we've all had a very hectic time, and those of us who usually do most of the organisational work, running the rituals and moots, etc. have had problems with our health (I mentioned that in May I had significant issues with my mental health). We've not been meeting up as a Circle very regularly, let alone me for many workings or rituals.

In my next post I will write about my visit to Druid Temple stone circle - a circle formed by the remains of a cairn. I went there in the evening after this ritual, and did some meditation. 

Summer Solstice: Our Home Altar

As with every spoke on the Wheel of the Year, I change the household altar to reflect the season. I find building a seasonal altar is a good way to connect to the changing year, to what is going outdoors in nature. I have a personal working altar in my study, which is more static in overall layout, and the altar I am showcasing in these pictures is our household altar in the living room. It's on wheels so I can roll it out into the middle of the space for group rituals, which is useful!

The two main aspects of Summer Solstice are 1) how the natural world is verdant and blooming in the height of summer and 2) celebrating the warmth of the Sun at it's peak (and also acknowledging that the days will then be drawing shorter again). The altar is set up to reflect those two things.

Summer Solstice Altar. Incense sticks are on a pentacle incense holder.

The altar-cloth is yellow to symbolise the bright summer sun, but yellow is also the colour of many of the flowers blooming at this time of year. I also have the yellow altar-cloth over a green knot-work and pentacle altar-cloth, but it isn't visible from this angle. I put down two altar-cloths to make sure the top of the trolley I use as an altar cloth is protected, as it's a vintage item of furniture and has already got minor damage to the surface that I don't want to get any worse. For printed altar-cloths, I buy them from a local importer that sells Fair Trade hippie goods, and for plain ones, I use scarves I've bought, usually secondhand on eBay or from charity shops. The yellow altar cloth is a scarf (and the same one I used for Imbolc).

Summer Solstice altar. Sun candle-holder in foreground. 

I like going for a symmetrical arrangement on my altar; I think the beautiful altars from the churches I went to in childhood have inspired me, as has the traditional Wiccan arrangement for an altar, and just my own enjoyment of symmetry and order. I like that sort of formal arrangement, I feel it's a balanced aesthetic. I am not so much into seeing half of the altar as 'feminine' and half as 'masculine' because I am not into the duotheism of Wicca or the gendering of arbitrary traits - the Goddess incense burner is on the left but as is the Green Man above her, and the Green Woman plaque is on the right (you can just see a corner of each in the image above). Instead, I'm going to be shifting the imagery to fire and air on the right, and earth and water on the left - I will be switching the Goddess incense burner to the right side next time, but I have salt (in a stone dish, representing earth, on the left) as well as the green lotus leaf incense holder, which I've categorized as earth/water due to the lotus, rather than as fire/air due to being an incense holder.

Roses from my garden.

I like putting plants that are in season on my altar, so I picked some of the roses blooming in my garden and put them in a little glass bowl. I actually grow a lot of colourful flowers in my garden; not a very Gothic thing to do, I guess, but I enjoy gardening, and the front garden is tiny so just has flowers in it. The front garden is actually looking a bit scruffy at the moment, so I have a plan to tidy it up in the near future, with some bark chippings in the flower beds to help keep the weeds at bay (although weeds are just flowers growing in the wrong place - I actually put pretty 'weeds' in pots; they grow happily with little attention, and some have rather nice flowers on them, like wild pansies). Some more solar flowers would be sunflowers or marigolds, if you wanted to put something really big and yellow on there and they're flowering at the right time for you. I don't like buying flowers when I can grow my own ones. Having real flowers that inevitably wilt is a good metaphor for many of life's transient things, including remembering that summer isn't forever. 

The two chunky green candle-sticks at the back are glazed in a wonderful rich green. I bought them secondhand in a charity shop. The two mottled looking candle-jars in the middle were gifts from a friend and they have little fabric leaves and charms on them. The Goddess incense burner was a gift from Raven. The sun candle-holder with a tea-light in it is another altar item that I have had for a very long time, probably nearly as long as I've been a witch. The pentagram candle holder was bought in the January sales a while back. I will soon post about our Open Circle ritual. 

Last Night I Led My First Group Ritual

Last night, I and a group of close Pagan friends celebrated Solstice together. It is not the first time I've been in a group ritual, or involved in the planning of one, but it is the first time the entire ritual was my responsibility.  

A big responsibility. 

I take my faith quite seriously, I take the Divine seriously, and I feel like that leading a ritual involves some big things to be responsible for - I am responsible for being suitably respectful to the Divine, for leading a spiritually fulfilling ritual, for making sure there's no fire hazards and basic and simple risk assessment. 

The last is the most practical and the most easy; place pointy things on the altar where people aren't liable to accidentally cut themselves, check for allergies to incense, make sure the ritual space is free of trip hazards, and remind those participating who have long hair that I once set part of my then-long hair on fire accidentally because it caught in the flame of a candle, and make sure said candles and incense aren't liable to incinerate either my flat or my friends! I personally have co-ordination, proprioception and spacial awareness difficulties for neurological reasons, so I have to be extremely careful around fire and sharp implements. 

The first two were a bit more difficult, and required a lot more thought and research. I didn't really want to do a ritual that was from a book (although I have quite the library of Pagan texts) or copy someone else's ritual. I wanted our ritual to be personal to us, but I also wanted it to be respectful and successful as a spiritual experience and a seasonal marker. I watched a lot of videos of rituals on YouTube, and thought about each one very carefully, analysing what worked and what did not, and realised that a lot of rituals seem a bit like amateur dramatics done by the less talented, and started feeling like a clergy role in any religion requires certain talents and learnt skills, and that perhaps even for an adhoc role leading an informal event, I am not the best person for this. The established religions have centuries of ritual tradition, set liturgy and thorough training for their clergy - Pagans don't; we mostly have a few decades of tradition-building, a bit longer for groups derived from Druid-revival groups from the 18th and 19thC, and also those from the older Occult orders, but dedicated Pagan seminaries are small and rare, and people who become Pagan clergy from a more 'home-grown' background very common. There's a distinct dearth of legally recognised Pagan clergy, too, but that is another issue for another day. 

My background before Paganism is a mixture of Anglican and Catholic Christianity, and that sets a very high benchmark in terms of ritual expectation! As a Pagan, most of the rituals I have attended have either been as part of a teenage coven that was more of a learning experience than a ritual group, and at public rituals hosted by experienced leaders of working groups, and mostly Druids, whom I respect greatly, but are not the same on the path ( not the same 'denomination' to non-Pagans) as mine. 

The structure for Neo-Pagan ritual often has its roots in Gardenerian tradition and early-to-mid twentieth century Wicca. It's the ritual structure I am comfortable and familiar with, so it is the ritual structure I chose to follow. Filling in that structure with my own words, altering it to fit the season and the group and our resources was my challenge. I also wanted the ritual to have a natural sense of both structure and flow, and to be a conduit for personal spiritual experience, rather than an artistic performance of Pagan symbolism. 

I did not want the medium through which we performed ritual to get in the way of the sacredness that is ritual, I did not want the focus to be on my in the role of 'acting High Priestess' or  the poetry (or lack thereof) of the words I spoke or the clumsiness of my movements around the ritual space, or on people needing to remember their lines, I wanted the focus to be on immanent Divine, on the personal connection to the solar cycles, on the personal connection to the shifting seasons, on the metaphors and parallels we can draw between seasonal change and personal change, and on a connective and spiritual ritual. I did not want the invocation of the elements to just be detached nature poetry; I wanted people to think about the elements as present around them, in them, and invoked less as a summoning, but more as an acknowledgement of their power and presence, the same for the invocations of the Divine.

I also had a lot of time pressures, and I ended up rushing the scripting, which meant that while I wrote a lot of it myself, in the end I had to do what I really did not want to do, and in places use the words someone else's ritual. I used the least I could, but read out from one of Scott Cunningham's Yule ritual - excerpts from the Yule ritual in 'Wicca For The Solitary Practitioner' - for a few sections.

I think the most successful part was when we were free to meditate quietly on what the Solstice meant to each of us, and we all got to contribute our views. I think it being a small group helped those who are a bit more quiet and more reticent to speak up to participate. It also gave me time to stop focusing on whether I was doing a good job of leading the ritual, and connect myself. I don't know how well the ritual worked for the others who participated yet, as I haven't really done a full after-ritual debriefing, but feedback so far seems positive.

Ritual leadership is difficult, and takes works and practice, and I didn't expect a perfect ritual for my first one. I tried my best, and in future I know to be more organised and to script the ritual fully days in advance, not write a rough outline and then fill it in earlier that day, and I am considering doing things like getting a little book stand so I can both keep an eye on whatever ritual text I am working from, whether from my own Book of Shadows, my own script or from someone else's, and hold the Ritual Tools to perform actions. I am also thinking that memorising certain sections, like the circle casting chant, would be a good idea, and help keep the focus on the Divine rather than on enacting the ritual. I need to work on being confident when leading ritual, and letting things flow through me, rather than feeling like I have to be a source. 

Happy Solstice!

Squinty

❅❅❖❅❅

Happy Winter Solstice everyone! 

Enjoy yourselves!

❅❅❖❅❅ 

Have a very blessed Solstice, fellow Pagans, and Atheists can treat the Solstice as a secular holiday; it is the shortest day of the year and the days will get longer afterwards and that is scientific fact. If you neither see it as a good secular holiday or celebrate a different midwinter holiday, have a good day anyway. 

I shall leave you with some pictures taken in 2010 of me being a happy Goth in the snow. My Dad took these. I was having a lot of fun playing in the woods, throwing snowballs at my Dad, having snowballs thrown at me at by my Dad. I was generally being a daft and silly and enjoying myself. 

Enjoying The Snow

Snow is my favourite sort of weather; it is both cold and pretty. I am the sort of person to build elaborate snow sculptures and make snow-angels and have snowball fights and go sledding.

I used to have dyed black hair with red and white clip-in streaks (a bit babybat, I know). I think my grandma knitted the black hat with snowflakes pattern. The boots I was wearing that day were studded with three sets of buckles and biker-styled, and really, really, comfortable. Sadly they were cheap and did not last. The trousers were black velvet, really, really, really warm and got worn to death. I still have the leather coat, gloves, and neck-kerchief. 

I'd Just Been Snowballed

This picture was taken back in Oxfordshire, England. Scotland gets much more snow than England, but we had particularly good snow that year. I miss winter back down South, and celebrating Christmas with my Dad, and playing in the woods being a big kid, especially with our friends.

❅

❅❅❖❅❅

Happy Winter Solstice!!

❅❅❖❅❅

❅

Solstice, Christmas and Decorations

This is a blog, with lots of pictures,about how my partner and I have decorated our apartment for the season. I'm going to do a separate blog about the food. That blog will hopefully also have lots of pictures.

This is our very first Solstice living together in Scotland! This is very exciting!

My partner is very traditional about Christmas. He comes from an Irish Catholic background, but was brought up in rural Wales, and to a much larger family than mine. His Christmas vision is that of a family gathering, of traditional foliage and red-green-gold, and his favourite part of the Christmas tradition is the food. To him, Christmas dinner is a gift to the family, the best gift of them all. My partner cooks to share.

I was brought up by my mad-scientist Dad, and after Mother left, Christmas was only ever vaguely traditional in our house and I, a batty Pagan and latterly a Goth, was left in charge of decorating, and had been from an early age (my Dad was a brave, brave man, letting me do the Christmas decorations as a kid. One year I made all the baubles out of K-Nex and tried to build a tree...) so my vision is of a quiet Christmas, outside playing in snow, or at home admiring the tree, with a silver-purple-blue-black and ice, snow, a winter theme and my favourite part of Christmas is decorating the tree and turning the lights on. Christmas was never really a true "family" thing as there was only my Dad and I involved, not the extended family. We were a family of sorts, but it wasn't exactly a gathering. To me, Christmas was a time to be creative, to decorate things and make presents.

These are pretty much opposites, they're even opposite colours, but we're trying to bring them together. There are similarities to our approaches; both of us are Pagan, and my partner had time off on the Solstice, but he is working on Christmas day, so that at least gives us a focus; we both like decorating the tree, we both think it is a brilliant occasion for candles. Together we have made our small but cosy apartment into a festive one.

The Solstice is the shortest day, and is about the changing seasons and the knowledge that the days are going to get longer, and while it might get worse before it gets better, Spring WILL come. One can celebrate a secular Solstice, which is simply a celebration of the celestial patterns and changing seasons, as well as a Pagan one, so if anyone wants a less sarcastic approach to an alternative to Christmas than Festivus, a secular Solstice is a possibility.

In the UK, the Solstice marks midwinter, but apparently in places with a continental climate (the USA, at least, maybe also in mainland Europe) the Solstice is actually considered the start of winter, because although the days are getting longer, there is a lag in the change in actual weather, meaning that the worst is still to come. As you may have noticed from my previous post, Scotland has winter already! We've had a few good coverings of snow, and I have seen the most beautiful sparkling white snow on the mountains. It will probably be worse in January, and maybe early February, but snow started falling in October in a light dust on the mountains, and was definitely around in November, and Samhain (Halloween) definitely makes more sense as the start of Winter here, and Imbolc (Candlemas) as the beginning of Spring. I haven't seen Spring in Scotland yet, but I've seen snowdrops in February when I lived in England. The UK being islands detached from mainland Europe, does not share the same climate as the majority of Europe (from what I remember of Brittany, northern France has a similar one, though) but has a maritime climate, and one also affected by the Gulf Stream.

Most Pagans see the natural world (and broader Universe) as Divine, with varying theologies from pantheism to polytheism, so each Pagan has a different way of seeing it in a religious sense. To me I celebrate the fact that I live in a Universe so wonderfully arranged, by perfect chance, that there are perpetual cycles, an order to existence, and remember that however bad life gets, it eventually does get better. I see the Divine as intrinsic to the Universe, so to me the geometry of the heavens is holy, the cycles of life are holy, the physics that means our universe sustains life is holy, the sun is holy, the moon is holy, the snow is holy, the trees are holy, the mountains are holy, etc. etc. etc. I don't ascribe to any literal interpretation of any mythology, or have an anthropomorphic vision of deity, but in Neo-Pagan mythology (which is basically poetry based on many older mythologies) the Solstice is when the Sun is reborn of the Dark Goddess. For lucky druids this can involve a battle (sometimes literal, staged with swords) between two men, one representing the Holly King and the other the Oak King.

Ah, Paganism, we have a festival of death (Samhain/Halloween) a festival of sex and fire (Beltane/May Day) and a festival where we get to have sword fights if we're Druids - we're so Metal :P

As the Solstice is a celebration of returning light, we're having a fiery solar theme to our celebrations. Borrowing from a Chinese New Year tradition, and adapting it for the solar new year, we're going to light a sky-lantern, and we're going to paint our wishes for the coming year on it first. We've bought a completely bio-degradable lantern with a bamboo frame because the paper disintegrates pretty quickly and if the metal-framed ones land on farm land, the metal-frames can pose a danger to livestock and wildlife. I don't want to honour the changes in nature by doing something that's going to harm nature. It's obviously important not to let them off near airports (I think we're far enough from the city airport) and and power-lines. They seem to be quite popular in the West now, and I think they're brilliant. I always find it quite moving to watch them float away until they're invisible, getting tinier and tinier as they go. The winds were actually too high to launch our lantern, so that will have to wait until it is calmer out, but we will launch it with our wishes!

We've got lots of solar themed decorations, including a sun topping our tree. The "sun" is actually a gold and orange 'star' with many points and a circular design, but as out sun IS a star, astronomically speaking, that is fine by me. I picked it up in Pound Stretcher reduced down to 99p. I thought that was a real bargain, cheaper than making one, which was my original idea. The round sun mirror is one I bought in a charity shop really cheaply a couple of years ago, but the gilt on the edges of the flames really catch the light and as we live in quite a small flat, it is nice to have a mirror, it makes the space feel a small bit lighter. Our living room has a a reasonable size window, but daylight is scarce at this time of the year, so the mirror's main duty is reflecting the candles and lights back into the room. The jar candles are really useful, but I can't remember where I bought them, I think Cargo in Henley-on-Thames. They were originally lanterns, but I took the wire loops off and have been using them ever since. I've taken them on night-time candle-lit picnics, I've had them light up home-made oriental dinners, and now I've got them lighting up my Solstice decor. Those jars carry lots of warm, romantic memories of lovely evenings with my partner, so it is quite important to me to have them up at this time of the year. The sun candle-holder is being lit by a tea-light in another, horizontal candle-holder. The tea-light holder was a gift from my wonderful friend Dawn, back when I was still at school, and the vertical sun candle-stick is one I've had so long that I have forgotten where I got it from, but my guess is going to be a charity shop. I got back in touch with Dawn a couple of years ago, and we're pen pals/internet friends now. She has a blog about being a writer.

Solstice Decor (Photographs by the ::Other Half::, editing by me)

In order for me to satiate my desire to have a few festive trimmings in Gothic style, I have a second Christmas tree. This tree is has no warm reds, no gold at all, and lots of black and silver. It is synthetic, only three feet tall, and the tree itself is black. Hanging on its boughs are purple, silver and black baubles, a silver bead chain, and purple star-shaped battery LED lights. I painted my own designs, in metallic purple and silver nail-polish, on the larger black gloss baubles. I am on a budget, so my baubles were from Poundland, Pound Stretcher and Tesco, and the tree itself, as well as the bead-chain and lights, were also from Tesco. The tree was £5 and I spent about £12 in total on decorations for it, most of that spent on the lights. The lights I am planning to use after Christmas as decor for our room, as it is in a purple, black and silver theme, and I like fairy-lights. I found some real glass mini-baubles (the perfect size for such a small tree!) in Pound Stretcher for £1.99, and they had lots of nice budget baubles. If I were rich, I would only have glass baubles and wooden ornaments, but I am unemployed and we're not a wealthy household, so I have mostly plastic baubles and am slowly (very slowly) accumulating better quality baubles. Not all the baubles are yet as I would like; the small glittery purple baubles from Tesco, for example, are a little too close to pink for my liking, while the metallic ones from the same tub are a much cooler shade. £17 is quite a large chunk of my budget, but as this is all from scratch, and will be used for years and years from now, hopefully a recurring Yuletide feature of my gothic boudoir (well, attempted boudoir), I don't mind it so much, especially as a large chunk of that is on the lights, which will be used year-round until the bulbs go, and as they are LEDs, that might take a while.

The "Gothmas" Tree (Photographed by The HouseCat)

On the main tree are some rather fancy black decorations, in onion and teardrop shapes, but these will also be turned into house decorations after Christmas. I am planning on tying them into two matching bunches with some broad black ribbon and tying them at either end of the curtain pole in our room. I also bought some beautiful LV lights from Tesco, which are just white, but each bulb has a punched metal orb around it, and these were only £6, so a real bargain. The other half, being a little bit taller than me, strung them up around the curtain pole in our room, and I think they look rather nice. If I buy something a bit dearer, I want it to have a life that's more than just for Christmas time. I know at £1.50 each, the baubles might not be considered that dear to some, but I'm on quite a limited budget. Anyway, the baubles look more expensive than they are, and I think combined with some broad ribbon and possibly a few beaded details that they would add a bit of classy fanciness to our bedroom rather than look like tacky Christmas decorations at the wrong time of the year. Once I've actually got everything done in our bedroom, I will take pictures of the new lights and the curtain-pole decorations made from baubles.

In our living room we have the seasonal spectacular itself, the Solstice Tree. As you can see on the full length picture, our tree is over six feet and festooned with baubles. The tree is always my favourite part of the seasonal festivities, and has been since the Christmas trees of my childhood. I absolutely adore decorating the tree and try my best to keep it up as long as possible. My partner wanted a more traditional colour scheme, and I did my best not to drown the tree in black baubles (my favourite sort of baubles ;-) ). The Other Half kept jesting that I'd not be able to get ALL the baubles onto the tree, but lo, I managed it.

Solstice Tree (Photographed by the ::Other Half::)

The pine-cones are my partner's favourite decoration on the tree. I've got to admit these ones my partner bought, but it's easy enough to make them if you find some suitable sized pine cones, spray them/paint them gold (I prefer paint to spray; no aerosol) and then tie some gold ribbon around the top. Next year, if I am less stressed and busy, I shall make some extra special pine-cones for the tree. The clear baubles with snowflakes on are my favourite not-black baubles and they used to hang on my Dad's tree. They remind me of home. My Dad sent me a box of baubles from home, and it is nice having a few things on the tree to remind me of Dad. I used to have more clear snowflake baubles, but Kuro, my cat, knocked the entire tree over last year and a few baubles met a premature demise.My partner really likes the red baubles, and I bought him some gold lantern baubles, to him the tree should be warm, in colours and in light.

The red drop bauble was painted by myself, with nail-polish. The fixing at the top where the string goes through is also painted green, and the bottom tip is dipped in green. I did 12 of these in total. I use nail-polish because it is durable and gives a good metallic finish and I have it in the house anyway, so don't have to go out and buy paint especially. I like painting things somewhere between tribal patterns and canal-boat brush-stroke designs. I did these the same way as I did the baubles on my goth tree. Re-painting cheap baubles is a good way of having unique baubles.

Solstice Tree (Photographs by the ::Other Half::)

In our living room we don't have much counter space, and having no fire, no mantlepiece to hang stockings or cards on, so I have strung the cards up above two door-frames, and currently two strands of cotton thread, adding more as we get more cards. I decided it would save space and if I just doubled up the thread, putting another string below the first, rather than put more across the room. It's a corner of the room between the boiler cupboard door and the hallway door, so it's not a very used area, and so we're not likely to catch our heads on the cards. Talking of cards, cards from previous years with the pictures cut out make cheap and green gift tags. If it's a scenic card, you can cut several small sections of the scene for quite a few tags from one card.

I'd really like to see pictures of other people's Christmas, Solstice, Hannukah, etc. decorations, especially that of other goths. Has anyone else got a "gothmas tree"? Have you put your decorations up yet? What are your family traditions for this time of year? Does anyone celebrate a religious Christian Christmas? Does anyone else celebrate a Pagan Solstice? Please comment and tell me what you'll be doing, even if you're completely un-festive and just want peace and quiet. I can empathise with being un-festive, after working in retail several Christmases running, finding Christmas a miserable time of the year for past family reasons, and generally being grouchy, I ended up with a black Santa hat with "Bah Humbug" embroidered on its fluffy white brim, and mutating into the unholy product of Scrooge and the Grinch, but my partner seems to have cured this. What music will you be playing this Christmas? Until I was 20 I was heavily involved in church and cathedral choirs, and still love the traditional carols and anthems. Please do comment!

Bane, at Goth It Yourself, the Gothic home decor and project blog, has some really lovely pictures of her ::snowy solstice::. It wasn't snowy here in the Highlands - our lovely snow got washed away a few days ago.