Bells, Candles,
& The Festival of Lights
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Home Up Origins of Mid-Winter Celebrations Some Traditions and The Nature Religions Saturnalia and The Feast of Fools Bells, Candles, and The Festival of Lights My Christmas Links Page |
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Early pagan winter celebrations featured the ringing of bells in order to
drive out "evil spirits". The tradition later developed a Christian side and
so began the tradition of ringing bells on Christmas Eve to welcome in the
Spirit of Christmas. At one time, people believed that ringing church bells
would protect them from lightning during thunderstorms. |
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Lighting candles during the holiday season comes from the pagan custom of
lighting fires during the solstice season to appease the sun-god as he
reached the lowest point in the southern skies. The Christmas candle is
similar in tradition to the Yule log. Both are lit on Christmas Eve and
burned throughout the evening. Like the Yule log, a proper Christmas candle
could not be bought, so many friendly grocers made a practice of handing
them out to their customers. The Yule log tradition says to preserve a small
piece of the log for next year's fire and the candles' tradition advises the
same. to uphold the custom, one must save a bit of the burnt-down candle to
preserve it from one year to the next as a lucky charm for the household. |
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