I confess I missed the “War on Christmas” last year. I work in retail and it is obviously our busiest time. I didn’t notice many skirmishes but we did have a few customers who seemed reluctant to say “Merry Christmas” and one who insisted on wishing me felicitations of the holy day in a way that suggested she was not happy nor did she care if I had a jolly time or not. So after last season’s furor over holiday greetings and decorations, I had hoped we’d come to some sort of understanding about the winter holidays but, alas, I was wrong.

One of the world’s largest retailers has bowed to the will of its demographic and has returned “Merry Christmas” to the lips of its employees and the plastic signs of its sale bins. Lest I be buried with a stake of holly through my heart for not saying “Merry Christmas,” I’d like to offer an olive branch — or more appropriately a mistletoe bough — in this pernicious little skirmish so that I and you may get on with celebrating our holidays this year.

Like many cranky middle-aged Southerners, I acknowledge that I live in a world gone topsy-turvy. My grandmother taught me good manners and I mostly still practice them—yes, sir; no, ma’am; please pass the tofu. I try to remember which religion my friends adhere to and I wish them greetings appropriate to the season. My grandmother didn’t hold with forcing your religion onto other people and would have been appalled at Southerners with the bad manners and incivility to force a holiday down everyone’s gullet, whether they celebrated it or not.

Both my cultural upbringing — my raising, as we term it here in the mountains — and my spiritual tradition enjoin me to offer hospitality. Most people’s religions do the same. Here at the darkest time of the year, we are faced with many expressions of our souls’ hopes and fears in the dregs of the old year, expressions that have come to this country in the hearts of immigrants for centuries, as well as those that were here in the indigenous populations to begin with.

As we come to the White Solstice in December, we stand with the harvest behind us and months to go before anything can be grown to feed us. The nights grow darker and the daylight hours shorten—we ingather to conserve energy and to cheer our hearts. We share stories out of our cultural past as well as the bounty of what we have stored to see us through the winter, whether we canned from our own gardens or went by the grocery store for eggnog on our way home from work.

These cultural and religious expressions take many forms. The dominant one in this country is related to the dominant religious force here, Christianity.

No matter what your personal celebration may be, your world-view in December is dominated by the trappings of Christmas and runs the gamut from Santa and his reindeer to the Blessed Virgin and her Child. But Christmas is not the only holy day celebrated by your neighbors and co-workers and friends.

In any given year, we might see December celebrations of Yule, Solstice, Hanukkah, Ramadan, Divali and Kwanzaa, in addition to Christmas. And the “Christmas” season itself — which until Dec. 25 is correctly called the Advent season — holds different cultural celebrations, including but not limited to St. Lucia’s Day, St. Nicholas’ Day and Los Posadas.

None of these celebrations diminish our own understanding of what our ancestors did and the traditions we follow to honor them and the season. Rather than risk the ire of my southern grandmother’s mannerly spirit, it seems better to be a good neighbor and wish someone a “happy holiday” if you don’t know which one they celebrate than to snap a mean-spirited “Merry Christmas” because you feel threatened and put-upon. Where’s the threat?

Each one of these spiritual expressions, these holy days, has its own trappings of decorations and food and greetings and its deeper teaching about family and survival and how to treat strangers who come to your door, whether they bear tamales, mead, fruitcake or frankincense. The way we survive the season, no, the way we thrive in this season, is to remember that we are not alone, that there’s something cooking in the kitchen and that we are blessed beyond measure by both. It is a time to remember what we have and to share the bounty, if we can.

The young sun of the winter solstice promises crops in the summer to store for next winter, and our tribe, however we define it, will be fed.

Full bellies, gracious hospitality.

And so the wheel turns and the cycle continues, by whatever name you call it.

Byron Ballard is a Dianic Wiccan high priestess with Notre Dame de l’Herbe Mouillee. She lives in Asheville.

Source: Asheville Citizen-Times

The trial for custody of a seven-month-old boy began Monday with claims of witchcraft, drugs and an unexpected request for guardianship from the boy’s biological grandmother.

“It is my grandson at the mercy of this court. I have been quietly and patiently watching this situation and see no indication of his inherent First Nation rights being acknowledged,” the grandmother told Justice Shawn Smith moments after the trial began in Saskatoon Court of Queen’s Bench.

“I’m not taking this step lightly,” she added. “I’m afraid for my grandson if his heritage is not recognized, so I ask that he be returned to me so I can raise him among his extended family and ensure he will not lose that identity.”

The biological father, who wants his son returned to him by the couple who adopted him, is not aboriginal.

The grandmother’s request stunned several people in court, since she had been called to support the father’s parental claim.

“Your plea is well-taken and your response is totally appropriate as the grandmother, but your request is not at all on the court’s radar,” Smith said.

The judge pointed out the woman has no custody application before the court.

The child’s biological mother is a woman with whom the man seeking custody had a sexual relationship. She arranged for a couple in Prince Albert, Sask., whom her family had known for 14 years, to adopt the child. But the father found out the woman was pregnant a few weeks before the baby was born.

The mother stated she didn’t know who the father was, but a DNA test confirmed the man is.

However, the contract between the mother and the Prince Albert couple is recognized as law. The adoptive parents have given the baby their surname and are seeking child-support payments from the dad.

A publication ban has been imposed on all names to protect the baby’s identity.

Smith must decide, in the best interests of the child, who should raise the boy.

The grandmother testified the baby’s mother knew who the father was. She testified the woman often spoke of her intention to tell him “but it gradually became clear she didn’t want to raise the child with him.”

The biological father’s lawyer asked her to explain why the Prince Albert woman is unsuitable to raise the child.

The grandmother accused her of practising witchcraft. “Years earlier, (the adoptive mother) was not feeling well and transmitted pains from herself to my older daughter.”

Lawyers for the mother and the adoptive parents jumped at the grandmother’s about-face.

“So have your feelings changed? You no longer support (the biological father) having custody?” asked Rick Danyluik, the couple’s lawyer. “You support you having the baby?”

“Yes,” the grandmother responded. She stressed First Nations customs have been around longer than Canadian courts and empower her to raise the child, or at the very least, decide who should.

But Danyluik noted she is not aboriginal. She has a European background and married a band member.

Source: ChronicleHerald.ca