Not the kind from excessive alcohol consumption (though I did have an eggnog with brandy last night) but from the rush leading up to the holidays and the aftermath.

In all it was a great holiday; I really threw myself into the planning for Yule and Christmas and that helped me through the difficulty of a sad anniversary (two years since my husband passed away on December 22nd ). It was wonderful to have my family here (my brother rarely gets Christmas off), so this was very special for all of us.

We celebrated on Christmas Eve with a dinner at my house with my family. My neice gave me a lovely Aunt card which was incredibly special to me. I’ve always wanted to be an aunt since I never planned on having children and I was a bit disappointed that my brother never had kids. Enter my dear sister-in-law Lisa with her daughter and PRESTO! I am an Aunt! I really love it - I get to spoil Krystina and the bonus is she isn’t a kid so I also get a groovy friend too.

I had a wonderful dessert called Killarney cake which is my new favorite thing - ever! It was made by my sister-in-laws mother and it was delicious!

We exchanged gifts and I got wonderful things - I hope everyone enjoyed their gifts from me too.

I’ve updated the site with my After Christmas Sale event which includes some slashed prices on great spells, a couple that I’ve never put on sale before. There is something for everyone and the sale will run through January 7, 2010. Click here to see what’s on sale.

I’ll be sending out spells from the last casting before the holidays and casting again on the Blue Moon which is on New Year’s Eve. Anyone purchasing spells between now and then will get the benefit of that wonderful rare power day - so please take advantage!

Yule (the Winter Solstice) occurs on December 21st and I am eager to have a slow paced holiday at home with family. We will be celebrating Christmas on Christmas Eve this year so Yule will be a special holiday that is the low-key cousin to Christmas. I’ve got the Yule log ready to burn in the fire-pit (I hope it is cool weather as it has been a bit warm lately and even poured rain yesterday which is a rarity in Florida in the winter) and a delightful tapas type menu for the feast. Of course there will be spiced cider and delicious Christmas cookies (made by my sister-in-law who has been baking around the clock!).

This time of year isn’t the best for me personally since my husband passed away two years ago on December 22nd. Yule therefore has a dual meaning to me. At midnight I will commune with the Goddess and send a message to my love.

I’ve thrown myself into decorating and housekeeping this season which has been a peaceful distraction from what is an emotional time. I love to keep busy and the holidays are wonderful for that. I’m excited too of the upcoming Yule Prosperity Spell and the Chinese New Year’s Day Good Fortune Spell. Every Yule I create the candles I will use in the next year’s casting, so I will be doing that this Yule as well as completing the spells for this year. It is a powerful day for prosperity.

I will post pictures on Facebook and on mysticspells.com if you’d like to see my Amy Brown Faerie tree for this year and my other holiday decorations too. Hope your holidays are merry!

Yule Traditions

Yule, is when the dark half of the year relinquishes to the light half. Starting the next morning at sunrise, the sun climbs just a little higher and stays a little longer in the sky each day. Known as Solstice Night, or the longest night of the year, much celebration was to be had as the ancestors awaited the rebirth of the Oak King, the Sun King, the Giver of Life that warmed the frozen Earth and made her to bear forth from seeds protected through the fall and winter in her womb. Bonfires were lit in the fields, and crops and trees were “wassailed” with toasts of spiced cider.

Children were escorted from house to house with gifts of clove spiked apples and oranges which were laid in baskets of evergreen boughs and wheat stalks dusted with flour. The apples and oranges represented the sun, the boughs were symbolic of immortality, the wheat stalks portrayed the harvest, and the flour was accomplishment of triumph, light, and life. Holly, mistletoe, and ivy not only decorated the outside, but also the inside of homes. It was to extend invitation to Nature Sprites to come and join the celebration. A sprig of Holly was kept near the door all year long as a constant invitation for good fortune to pay visit to the residents.

The ceremonial Yule log was the highlight of the festival. In accordance to tradition, the log must either have been harvested from the householder’s land, or given as a gift, it must never have been bought. Once dragged into the house and placed in the fireplace it was decorated in seasonal greenery, doused with cider or ale, and dusted with flour before set ablaze be a piece of last years log, (held onto for just this purpose). The log would burn throughout the night, then smolder for 12 days after before being ceremonially put out. Ash is the traditional wood of the Yule log. It is the sacred world tree of the Teutons, known as Yggdrasil. An herb of the Sun, Ash brings light into the hearth at the Solstice.

A different type of Yule log, and perhaps one more suitable for modern practitioners would be the type that is used as a base to hold three candles. Find a smaller branch of oak or pine, and flatten one side so it sits upright. Drill three holes in the top side to hold red, green, and white (season), green, gold, and black (the Sun God), or white, red, and black (the Great Goddess). Continue to decorate with greenery, red and gold bows, rosebuds, cloves, and dust with flour.

Symbolism of Yule - Rebirth of the Sun, The longest night of the year, The Winter Solstice, Introspect, Planning for the Future.

Symbols of Yule - Yule log, or small Yule log with 3 candles, evergreen boughs or wreaths, holly, mistletoe hung in doorways, gold pillar candles, baskets of clove studded fruit, a simmering pot of wassail, poinsettias, christmas cactus.

Herbs of Yule - Bayberry, blessed thistle, evergreen, frankincense holly, laurel, mistletoe, oak, pine, sage, yellow cedar.

Foods of Yule - Cookies and caraway cakes soaked in cider, fruits, nuts, eggnog, ginger tea, spiced cider, wassail, or lamb’s wool (ale, sugar, nutmeg, roasted apples).

Incense of Yule - Pine, cedar, bayberry, cinnamon.

Colors of Yule - Red, green, gold, white, silver.

Stones of Yule - Rubies, bloodstones, garnets, emeralds, diamonds.

Activities of Yule - Caroling, wassailing the trees, burning the Yule log, decorating the Yule tree, exchanging of presents, kissing under the mistletoe, honoring Kriss Kringle the Germanic Pagan God of Yule.

As you know I don’t often cast spells for myself (it drains a great deal of energy that I need to give to the spellwork I do for others) but I often cast spells for friends and family. I want to tell you about a spell I cast specifically for my brother that worked immensely well.

My brother was in need of a job change and it was getting very frustrating for him in the position he was in. We had discussed it at length and I used a spell that would focus on job change and abundance. I didn’t want to be too specific or limiting in my language because I wanted the best for him and sometimes that will just arise without much help from us.

I did a spell, lit a 7 day candle and kept it burning like a beacon. Within the time-frame (only several days in fact) he had a solid job offer and the potential for advancement that he was looking for. This was incredible news because of the trying job market out there and also that my brother has a niche-oriented job which can be even more complicated to find in a job search.

Once he was squared away I kept an abundance candle burning for several days to continue petitioning for positive energy surrounding this new job.

Now that he has been at the new job two weeks he has reported back in that it differs somewhat from what he had been doing previously (he’s a ship’s captain) yet the people he works with are terrific and there is a lot of potential there. He is quite content and this is good news for the entire family.

My brother is out-numbered by the women in our family - we have five to his one (well we often count the dog on his side since he is male too!) yet he takes care of us in a non-threatening, compassionate patriarchal sense. I would do anything to help him because he is my brother and a very generous person with a good heart, so I was thrilled to see this spell work its magick.

There is nothing quite like it when you tell your brother, not to worry, I’ve got your back and he turns to you and says with a heartfelt smile, “Hey, thanks.”

My pleasure.

There will be a slight delay in my getting results shipped this week since last night I was involved in a car accident. My car was severely damaged. Fortunately no one involved was hurt, though my mother and I were quite shaken up. My brother and sister-in-law came to help and were so kind and helpful to us we were most grateful that my brother was home as he had not planned to be home until later this month.

I have to go today to the body shop to meet the insurance guy and then hopefully we will have a rental car (provided by my insurance company) so I will have to see how everything proceeds before I can do my mailing. I know you are all waiting but it will probably be after the weekend once I get everything sorted out.

This is my second accident in Ocala since I’ve lived here (3 years now) and both involved 16 year old drivers. This place is the worst place for auto accidents of anywhere I have ever lived including San Francisco. I have never seen as many accidents as I have here. It’s terrifying. You know they even have a Highway Fatality board (sign) for the county – it tells how many deaths from last year, how many so far this year, how many were alcohol related and how many people were not wearing their seatbelts. In this area MOST people who are involved in fatal car crashes are NOT wearing their seatbelts. It defies logic really. The paramedics who came to the scene were so nice and very happy when we told them we of course had been wearing our seatbelts.

I will post here once everything has been mailed.

UPDATE: Everything has been mailed!

My father and brother are here so I will be off for the next three days. I haven’t seen my father in a year so it will be nice to catch up and the last time he was here was just after my husband died so it was not an especially good time. Things will be better this time.

I’m still dealing with the remnants of the flu and have terrible laryngitis! For someone who loves to talk it is just dreadful having to use hand signals and whisper.

I went out tonight for the first time in almost two weeks and had a lovely dinner with Mom and finally felt that I was part of the world again. Anyone expecting pakages from me will have to wait until the beginning of next week but I am back to work at least answering emails and doing readings etc.

I look forward to being back in top form for the Full Moon!

…she drinks an inordinate amount of herbal tea with honey!

I’m not much good when I get sick and fortunately it is very rare. This time I had been traveling and obviously was like a healthy magnetic to germs. I recall being in the diner where my mother and I had our Christmas dinner and there was someone behind her who coughed in my direction. After the typical gestation, on Saturday when we were coming home I felt a scratch in my throat.

This devilish infection took a dastardly turn by the start of the week and I was feverish and achingly unwell. A trip to the doctor was called for since my herbal remedies were not touching it. I go to the doctor once a year at most and only in the most dire of circumstances. Years ago I became my own healer and have done very well with it except when regarding cold viruses.

I was lucky to have my wits about me for casting on Thursday and I seemed to get better by inches over the next couple of days. Now on my 8th day I am stuck with laryngitis, the occasional throaty chest rattling cough and a sniffle.

I have used herbal remedies to some success before a cold makes its home which I could have done if I had not been traveling. Usually that involves fistfuls of raw garlic cloves (you read that right) that I will eat for several days to knock a cold out of my system. I do not eat completely raw garlic however - I eat pickled garlic which means I am not offensive to all those around me. Being Italian helps since I love garlic in any guise.

That coupled with powerful herbal tisanes and the best honey I can get my hands on usually prevents most viral maladies.

I also have a cough syrup that I make with cayenne pepper, ginger, honey, apple cider vinegar and spring water which really seems to soothe and keep me from suffering too much.

The upside to this (if you can find one) is that I was forced to slow down. Most of the time I am going full-charge, working, household stuff, cooking, shopping, visiting friends and family and rarely take time out to just curl up in a soft blanket and watch movies. I did plenty of that this past week and frankly - I AM GOING NUTS!

Some people are just not meant to take it that slow.

I am looking forward to getting back to work tomorrow and I have family coming in this week (my father and my dear brother) so this should be really good for me. I hope my voice is back soon! (Though my family will probably wish it isn’t!)

I hope your holidays were as wonderful as mine! What did you do? Have a traditional Christmas holiday with friends and family? Or did you try something new like I did this year?

Some of you may recall that last Christmas my dear husband passed away.  Considering that this would be an emotional time for me on the first anniversary of his passing, my mother suggested that we get away for the holidays and make some new traditions.

We weren’t sure if it was going to be possible but at the last minute (and because of understanding family members) we were able to get out of town for the entire holiday!

We didn’t go far (just across the state to Fort Lauderdale, one of my favorite places in Florida) but it was like another world compared to Ocala and it was a break I really needed.

We stayed in a great hotel, got the royal treatment and had an incredible dinner at Sublime, a gourmet vegan restaurant. Father Christmas himself could not have delivered a more appreciated gift.

On Christmas day we drove down to Miami Beach and checked out the festivities on South Beach. Surprisingly - everything was open! Shops and restaurants and tons of people were at the beach too. Back in Fort Lauderdale things were much quieter, there were only a few places open for dinner. We ended up at a retro place called Moonlite Diner and it was fantastic. The entire day was leisurely and relaxed, the first time in a long time that I felt this way.

It is good to be back though since I missed my Lucy and my mother missed her kitty too. We also missed family time but fortunately we will be able to have our own holiday together when my brother comes home next week.

I did get one unwelcome parting gift however from my holiday away - a Christmas cold! Oh well, you can’t have everything!

I thought you might like to see a close-up of one of the Faerie Diva’s.

This is is something for Christmas that I do every year and I wanted to share it with you. It’s my Amy Brown Faerie Diva Christmas Tree. I have been collecting Amy Brown Faerie Diva’s for several years now and put this faerie tree in our front window.

It is very special to me and was a wonderful source of comfort to me last Christmas at such a difficult time. Isn’t it wonderful that faeries can bring so much happiness to those in need?

I think Christmas faeries are as important as Christmas Elves!

I am very fortunate that my brother married a wonderful pagan lady who is not only an amazing wife to him but a terrific friend to me too. It is great to keep our pagan family close and celebrate occasions with a witchy flair.

We were planning on going to the pagan festival that I had mentioned in a previous post but at the last minute our plans changed so we had to adapt.

Oh how we adapted!

We had the best day - lovely vegetarian lunch at Ruby Tuesday’s, shopping at Pier 1, Petco (for the familiars!) and Bed, Bath & Beyond (and they do mean beyond - I am always stunned at the things they have in that store and how nice the employees are) for gifts for my Mother’s upcoming birthday.

We had our own kind of pagan festival and magick was all around. At one point I picked up a goofy pen that I thought was cute and it had my name (my non-witch name) on the back. That was pretty odd and things like that always happen when two witches get together. We are so lucky to be sisters!