Yule Offering #2: Courage

My second hope for you at Yule is that you engage the season with bravery.

This is the time when we stand up to darkness and cold and the prospect of much more of it, and we do so with a combination of brazen silliness and real strength: the kind of strength it takes to deal with difficult family members and multiple obligations and inclement weather and looming deadlines and planned projects and lists and unsnarling the bloody lights and figuring out where we put the tree stand last year and deciphering Grandma’s 40-year-old spider-scrawl on that recipe that simply MUST be made.

The many demands of life multiply at Yule. For some, this is reason enough for the whole affair to become oppressive and miserable…and often, lonely as a result, when they are the very ones who most need company and cheer.

So for you at this time, and continuing forward into the new year, I wish strength and perseverance. Even in these darkest of days, may you find it within you to rise to the many occasions, and embrace the flurries of tasks and obligations. May the terrible news that dominates the world’s discourse not demoralize you. May short days and cold not dampen your spirits, and may interactions and engagements steel you for the days ahead.

Courage to you, my friends. May the spirit of Yule warm you right through, and strengthen you against the freezing winds. May the sure knowledge of the light’s return hold fast in your hearts.

Warmer, brighter—and less complicated!—days are coming.

Persist.