Whatever happened to the good old days when Yule used to be about getting together at the solstice and having a family feast, sharing food and each other’s company?

But now, it’s all buy buy buy. Every single day in the run up, all the talk is about how many oxen you should invest in to feed everyone, how much grain you should buy to have the biggest and greatest feast, which log is the biggest and the best to burn. Logs logs logs, that’s all you hear about.

Nobody even talks about the real meaning of Yule anymore; the Great Blót is almost an afterthought. Times gone by, we properly cared about who was getting hanged and disemboweled in sacrifice to Wodan, but people these days are all about vapid consumerism. You can’t even wish anyone a happy Yule anymore, in case they get offended because they celebrate Saturnalia.
It’s political correctness gone mad and it’s an insult to our culture. Once we’re out of the bloody Roman Empire and their enforced bureaucracy then we can maybe get back to how things should be.

This week’s opinion piece is from Æthelred, son of Egbert