What are you doing for Yule?

This year is especially tight for us--if it wasn't for family, my boys wouldn't be getting anything for Christmas. Yes, we celebrate Christmas, even though we're pagans...we celebrate the secular aspects of it, and focus on the spiritual messages of the season on Yule.

In the past, I've always spread out the present-opening for my boys between Yule and Christmas Day: they would get their first gift of the holiday season at our Winter Solstice celebration, usually something spiritually-oriented or "educational" (for us homeschoolers, everything is educational!), then one gift per day until Christmas morning, when  the rest would be opened--and usually the "biggest" or most longed-for would be reserved for Christmas morning, since it came from Santa! When the boys were little, this served to draw out the excitement and diffuse the possibility of them being overwhelmed and having a negative reaction from so many gifts all at once. Gift overload is not a fun thing to experience with toddlers and small children.  :)

This year, however, I think we'll have to reserve the gift opening for Christmas morning, because there just won't be enough to open. Don't get me wrong, we're not so bad off that we are in danger of losing our home or starving, but we simply do not have anything left after paying the absolute necessities of life: rent, utilities, groceries, phone, internet (arguably NOT a necessity, but essential for running my home-based business, homeschooling, and my son's revewed obsession with World of Warcraft through a 10 day free trial), insurance, gas, etc--and most of those bills are a month behind. We are blessed in that we have a very flexible and understanding landlady, and we don't own credit cards or have a car payment to make, but it is still so very difficult to get everything covered these days. It started tightening up when my dance biz slowed down this fall--in this economy, people are cutting back left and right and forgoing non-necessities. Then my mother fell deathly ill and we nearly lost her--but luckily we were able to make it down to Arkansas to see her in the hospital, and they figured out what went so drastically wrong and she has since recovered, though with more health problems than before. Two trips to AR in rented cars around Thanksgiving took their toll on our fragile finances and we're still catching up.

We are also blessed with wonderful, intelligent, compassionate, understanding sons who, although they wish for and want all the cool, latest technogical and electronic gadgetry like smart phones, gaming systems and laptops, have accepted the fact that they aren't going to be getting these high-dollar presents any time soon. There is some hope for things to get more fluid in January, and coupled with the after-Christmas sales, Santa might be able to pull off a "big" gift for each (fingers crossed). But my boys are happy and grateful, as am I, that we are safe and warm this holiday season, and have friends and family that care and that we care about.

With that in mind, I'm wondering what to do for our Yule observance this year, to help make it extra special and even more meaningful than in years past, but without any extra expense.

What have you done to celebrate Yule? What are your plans for this Winter Solstice? Do you have any frugal ideas for feasting, rituals, crafts? I'm going to research and see what I come up with, then share my plans here. Looking forward to seeing yours!

Blessings,

Zivah