The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

It’s the most wonderful time of the year…. 

It’s the most wonderful time of the year
With the kids jingle belling
And everyone telling you be of good cheer
It’s the most wonderful time of the year

 

It’s the hap-happiest season of all
With those holiday greetings and gay happy meetings
When friends come to call
It’s the hap-happiest season of all

 

There’ll be parties for hosting
Marshmallows for toasting
And caroling out in the snow
There’ll be scary ghost stories
And tales of the glories of
Christmases long, long ago

 

It’s the most wonderful time of the year
There’ll be much mistletoeing
And hearts will be glowing
When loved ones are near
It’s the most wonderful time of the year….

–Edward Pola and George Wyle, as sung by Andy Williams, 1963

holy: adjective exalted or worthy of complete devotion; devoted entirely to the work of deities; having a divine quality.

How does one make the leap from Hela to Holda? Are these not likewise two completely separate individuals, one Norse and the other Germanic? To effectively answer that question, we must once again turn to etymology. Hulda comes to us from German huld, “gracious, friendly, sympathetic, grateful”, and is cognate with Danish and Swedish huld, “fair, kindly, gracious”, as well as Icelandic hollur, “faithful, dedicated, loyal”. It also traces to Old Norse hulda: “hidden, secret, concealed”. Hulda is also commonly glossed as Frau Holle, which directly sources to Old Norse hel. So, yes, etymologically, at least, Holda and Hela are definitely the same entity!

Germanic and Scandinavian folklore only serve to further prove this point, culminating in the various references to Holle, Hulda, Perchta, and Berchta in association with the Wild Hunt. While it might, in fact, be purely modern gnosis that Hela is the mother of the now-popular Krampus (see Brom, 2015, Krampus: The Yule Lord), Her place within the Yule Season was cemented long before Brom was even a glimmer in his mother’s eye, as was the place of the “horned menace” that is Krampus. You see, alongside Freyja and Odin, Hela-in-the-guise-of-Holle (or Hulda or Perchta) is one of the three leaders of the Wild Hunt, and always has been, even if Odin tends to get the spotlight in the modern world, as He does with most things nowadays.

In fact, this “metamorphosis” of Hela, combined with the “Odin spotlight effect” and Krampus Himself serves to make a pretty important point that most of us nowadays seem to be missing about the entirety of the Holiday Season: when we lose our wonder, we’ve lost the entire point, and part of wonder is fear:

wonder: noun cause for astonishment or admiration; the quality of exciting amazed admiration; rapt attention or astonishment at something awesomely mysterious or new to one’s experience; a feeling of doubt or uncertainty.

What do the “metamorphosis” of Hela, the “Odin spotlight effect” and Krampus Himself possibly have to do with our sense of wonder, or our having lost it, or with fear as it relates to wonder? That last bit is probably the most obvious, so I’m going to talk about the first two–wonder and our having lost it–first. 

Regardless of what religious path we were raised in or on, most of us can harken back (or, at least, I hope we can, and, if not, I’m truly sorry you had such a sad childhood, and I mean that, from the bottom of my heart!) to a time when we were children when something about this time of year–some sight, some smell; some sound–caused our hearts to hold a momentary thrill of awe. Maybe it was the first sight of a tree, all bedecked with lights, that caused a soft, hazy glow against a backdrop of snow, those lights almost making the night seem both colder and warmer, somehow, at the same time. Maybe it was the smell of gingerbread baking in the kitchen, whether made from scratch or from a tube-o-cookies, gotten by Mom off a frozen-foods end-cap at the grocery store. Maybe it was the sound of a little bell tinkling across a barren parking lot, its source hidden in the shadows of a great mall entryway, so that it seemed reindeer were somewhere taking flight nearby. Regardless of what it was, I want you to take a couple of seconds now, and just rest in that moment. As a child, you probably didn’t seek the source of that wonder, did you? You didn’t try to over-explain it to yourself. You just had a few seconds of a breathless “wow” of awe, and you honestly enjoyed whatever it was, right? So do that now: don’t seek the source of the wonder, or try to over-explain it to yourself, just rest in that moment.

Now, I want you to remain in that childlike, wondering place, and close your eyes, and imagine yourself standing on a cold hillside covered in snow. You can hear bells and the crack of a whip in the distance. As you stand there on that snowy hillside, that sound comes closer and closer, until you can finally see its source: a huge gathering of ghosts and riders, led by a bright lady and her fearsome horned companion. Among those riding behind, you can see yet more such horned figures, dancing and loping and jingling, as they all wear bells. What does seeing such things make you feel? Do you want to run away, or do you want to join them in their travels? Maybe you just breathe a soft and solemn breath of “wow“. Remember your feelings, and then open your eyes.

We are now going to put on our “adult hats”.

As adults, when we see a tree covered in lights against a backdrop of snow, all too often, we are too busy bitching about how hard it is to drive in the snow to even notice that soft, hazy glow of lights which make it seem both colder and warmer, somehow, at the same time. The smell of gingerbread, while it might still tickle our tastebuds and bring about a certain sort of nostalgia, all too quickly might remind us of the dishes that will need doing afterwards. That tinkle of a bell across a barren parking lot, rather than causing us to look skyward, searching for reindeer, instead inspires annoyance that someone is standing there, ringing the damn thing, to the “glory of God” and to the exclusion of too many in need (specifically: those among the LGBTQ+ community). Faced with a vision of the Wild Hunt, rather than breathing that soft and solemn breath of “wow“, we may find ourselves instead over-analyzing, and asking who, “historically”, is leading that wild band across the hillsides in the first place or, worse still, chalking it all up to “mere folklore”, in the same way that Ebenezer Scrooge accused Jacob Marley of merely being a hallucination brought about by the consumption of bad potatoes. In other words: all the wonder is gone.

One of the best examples of this that I have personally witnessed this season is the huge debate over Sunwait Candles and whether or not they were “vikinged” (I couldn’t even begin to have made this up!) from the Jewish tradition of the menorah or the Christian tradition of the advent wreath. Most of the same people coining that term are likely to be the same ones who tear this blog post (and my publisher’s future book) apart for even deigning to suggest that Holle and Hela might be the same entity, regardless of the history and etymology, and who see Odin everywhere, to the exclusion of the deeper Vanir root in pretty much our everything, also regardless of actual history. Nevermind that the Sunwait Candles are a Scandinavian tradition which were actually the pre-Christian source of the advent wreath in the first place, or that menorahs and Hanukkah are associated with the miracle of the oil (Google it!) and have zero to do with candles in the first place, until the modern era. Nevermind that the observance of using Sunwait candles might bring some people joy–how dare they freaking enjoy the Holiday Season? Don’t they know we’re supposed to be all academic and arguing all the time, mostly based on academics that are entirely made-up, with zero basis in actual history or etymology? Don’t they know that we’re supposed to all be following a made-up version of Heathenry that’s based on a Christian model where everybody, everywhere, in the Iron Age all believed exactly the same things with zero regional differences? Everybody’s so busy adulting that they sap the wonder right out of whatever was intended to bring it in the first place! Bah, Humbug!

When we lose this ability to wonder, we also lose the ability to fear, and while it might seem like fear is something we would all like to get rid of, the truth of the matter is, without fear, life would be as boring and humdrum and cranky and crappy as life without wonder. It would also be a whole lot shorter, because without being afraid, we would get ourselves into situations that would likely end us on the spot. It is fear that informs us jumping off of a building is a bad idea, just as it is fear that tells us fire will burn. It is fear that leads us to get things like flu shots. It is also fear that makes roller coasters enjoyable, horror movies fun to watch, and ghost stories fun to read and tell. Without fear, we wouldn’t have such great authors as Nathaniel Hawthorne, Stephen King, and Anne Rice. Without fear, we wouldn’t have amusement parks. Without fear, the Harry Potter franchise would just be a series of boring stories about some poor disfigured (scar on his forehead) orphan who sucked at doing his homework, and every Disney movie ever made would just be a trite series of images of birds and mice singing stupid songs. Without fear, the entire Star Wars franchise would be a series of stories about a whining farm boy who couldn’t get his way all the time! I could go on and on, but hopefully by now you’ve gotten my point….

No doubt this year you’ll inevitably hear somebody talking about “putting Christ back in Christmas” and then find yourself getting all bent out of shape about everybody not being Christian, and “what about the rest of us”, but I’m here to tell you: if you aren’t putting the holy back in holiday, you should be untying yourself from all of those knots! Instead of getting bent, check your sense of wonder, for if that is intact, you’ll be so busy enjoying those solemn and silent moments of breathing “wow“, that you’ll likely not have much time to notice anything else!

I invite you, then, to stand alongside me, on a long-forgotten hillside, covered in snow; above us, the brilliant, reaching, multi-colored fingers of the Northern Lights, and the sound of bells and the cracking of a whip in the valley below. As we stand, the source of those sounds comes into view: a varied band of Dead and Ever-Living, led by a Bright Lady and a great, jingling horned behemoth, and, behind them, their ragtag and wondrous retinue. Feel the thrill of fear, and, at the same time, that soft and silent breath of “wow“, and then rest in that moment, even as you open your eyes, each tinkling bell from across a barren parking lot the jingling of Krampus as He makes His journey through the snow; each shimmering light the tiny echo of those torches carried by the members of the Wild Hunt. I invite you, in short, to wonder, all the Season through, and also to fear: to let your heart race at the scent of gingerbread, the dishes after forgotten, at least for a time; to tell ghost stories by candlelight, and then wonder, after, whether that bump in the night is just Great Aunty Mabel, or something far darker, come to call. Take off your “adult hat”, and regain the heart of a child, if only for this short season, that it may again be the most wonder-full time of the year.