Horsethorn is having a break from posting at the moment and Owlswing is away - their input would have been appreciated as it's unfair on the remaining pagan (sorry Rhi!) to shoulder all of the burden. Interested to know how pagans see Yule, what its significance is within this or that pagan tradition and what customs/traditions/practices are most typically associated with it.
Tbh an answer to that could fill a book and the surface would barely have been scratched. And I'm almost the wrong pagan to ask, as I do my own very low key thing my own way. Ht and Owlswing would have very different answers to mine.
There are lots of customs - decorating the house with evergreens, the Yule log, the Lord of Misrule, the story of the Oak King and the Holly King, hunting the wren...
I do use greenery from the garden in marking the season - I do the same all year round with whatever is available - but otherwise I'll probably just spend some time outside, burn some incense...we won't be able to ignore the fact that the evenings are getting lighter soon, so for me it signifies the start of the growth part of the year. If I could take myself off to a pagan bubble and not do either Christmas or New Year I would, because to me personally - not any other pagans that I know - it makes sense to think of change and transformation starting to germinate at the winter solstice, and so it feels like it should be the start of the new year. But I don't live in that world so I'll be keeping everything as everyone else does - but breathing a sigh of relief that the wheel still turns and that the light is coming.
