Writer: Zopilotay
Subject: The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year
Link: Tumblr / 12.12.2025
The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year
“There’ll be parties for hosting. Marshmallows for toasting. And carolling out in the snow. There’ll be scary ghost stories. And tales of the glories of Christmases long, long ago …”
In the Christmas song “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year,” this is one of the stanzas. We forget that even as late as the 20th century, an ancient connection was still being preserved between Christmas and the spirit world in some pockets of our culture. If we go back as far as Charles Dickens’s Christmas Carol, with its three spirits, we find something of that old Yuletide brimstone flavor. What is the connection between Christmastide and the world of the dead, and where did it come from?
Well, first of all, we should recall that December is the darkest month of the year with the longest nights, and this remains true through the first half of January. As winter’s darkness arrives and casts her dark mantle over the world, we both embrace the night and stave it off with our parties, our galaxies of holiday lights, our singing and celebrating of new hope and new life in the year to come, symbolized for many by the birth of the Christ child.
Santa Claus, who has his roots in old pagan gods like Thor and Jupiter, the gods of good fortune, represents the successes and achievements of the past year, at least for those who were fortunate enough to experience life that way. He reminds us that life is, or at least can be, good.
But sooner or later, the dreary Crone of Old Winter asserts herself; with her comes the dread we feel for the year to come, for the misfortunes we may have to face. At some deep level, the question arises: “Will my loved ones and I survive what is to come this year?” The poet Andrew Marvell put it this way, “But at my back I always hear/Time’s winged chariot drawing near.” Time is getting shorter. Opportunities have passed us by. Failure and mortality may be waiting around the bend.
When the ancients thought of Time and the dread it could bring, they thought of the god Saturn, whom they called Deo Temporibus (the God of Time), Rex Mortuorum (King of the Dead), and Maior Infortuna (Great Misfortune). At some point in my journey as a magician and witch, I made the decision to celebrate both the Light and the Darkness. And so for me, I enjoy the brilliance and color of the season, its jubilation and joy.
But I also enjoy my weekly meetings with the Old Reaper. This is what my altar looks like every Saturday, on the day named after His Calamitousness. After I have called the quarters and performed the liturgy of greeting, adoration, and gratitude, I make an offering, after which we meet and chat each week. There is profound wisdom in this deity, and his acquaintance is worth your while. I’m under no illusions about our erstwhile friendship, though. Someday, he will have my head. Happy Holidays!