People are only just realising the real meaning of the Christmas word 'Yuletide'

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Christmas is known by many names depending on where you're from and what your beliefs are. We have all heard it referred to as the "festive period" or the "holiday season", but there's another term that's very common around this time of year even though many of us don't know what it means - Yuletide.

You'll find the word in many Christmas songs, including Deck the Halls and Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas. You might have bought a Yule log to tuck into after your Christmas dinner, and your festive marathon of Harry Potter films might remind you that they celebrate something called a Yule ball in the franchise. But what do Yule and Yuletide actually mean, and where do they come from?

If you Google the word "Yuletide," you'll be told it's an "archaic term for Christmas". This is backed up by several online dictionaries, such as Dictionary.com, which defines it as "the Christmas season" and also adds: "The season of an ancient Germanic pagan holiday centring around the winter solstice, now sometimes celebrated by neopagans."

The word itself comes from two Old English words - "geol", meaning Yule or Christmas, and "tid", which means time or season. It refers to the time of year we would now call the "festive season" between late December and early January, and in the same way you can say Christmastime to describe this general time of year, Yuletide does the same thing with the celebration known as Yule.

What is Yule?

According to the Britannica website, Yule is a festival that is observed historically by Germanic people and coincides with the winter solstice, which in the Northern Hemisphere is December 21 to 22. The festival originated in Scandinavia and predates Christmas, as it has its origins among the ancient Norse thousands of years ago.

The Britannica website states: "Its roots are complicated and difficult to trace, although there are several theories about how and why the festival was celebrated. It is generally agreed that Yule celebrations began as a Norse festival called jol, although assessments of the purpose and traditions vary. Like most winter solstice festivals, themes of light, fire, and feasting are common threads."

Yule then became a name for Christmas in the 9th century as Christianity spread across Europe. The two festivals became intertwined, and many countries still use Yule or variations of it to describe this time of year.

How are Christmas and Yuletide different?

For many people these days, Christmas and Yuletide are completely interchangeable terms, but some subtle distinctions differentiate them. Most obviously, Christmas is traditionally a religious holiday that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, while Yuletide is a broader, more inclusive term that refers to a spectrum of winter festivities.

Yule originates from pagan traditions symbolising the longest night of the year. The festivities begin on December 21 - the winter solstice - and end on January 1, the start of the new year. This makes Yuletide 12 days long, but it's a different period from the one known as the 12 Days of Christmas, which runs from December 25 until January 6.

The 12-day festival of Yule was designed to signify the transition to darker hours, as the winter solstice marks the shortest day of the year, and was celebrated long before Advent or Christian practices around Christmas. Today's version of Yuletide, however, often represents a fusion of historical pagan roots and Christian celebrations.

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