Showing posts with label Yule Cake. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Yule Cake. Show all posts

Sunday, December 13, 2015

Tradition of the Yule Log in a Tiny House

In my tiny home we celebrate Yule. Yule normally falls on either the 21st or 22nd of December each year. Tuesday, December 22 is the Winter Solstice this year. This is longest night of the year, when the light of day is shorter than the dark of night. After the solstice, slowly, day by day, the days will become longer until the Summer Solstice when light will be longer than dark. 

The Yule Log tradition traces way back to the Norse. It is a symbol for always having warmth. As you may remember, people heated their home with wood, and wood had a tendency to become scarce. The original Yule log was a full tree, brought into the home with great ceremony and one end was shoved into the hearth. The fire already going in the hearth would have been lit with a small section of the previous year's Yule log remnants. The new tree would burn until a small section was left. This small section would be preserved as the Yule log. And  so it would continue, year after year.