You Know that Phrase Ned Stark Says? Yeah, That.

|Credit: [x]|

I don't think the sun was shining at all today. It's been dim and wintery -- as it should be. This is Oswego, after all. While I miss Autumn, as my last post suggests, I am fascinated by the winter months here.

First, the shift is so much more obvious and abrupt here by the great lakes. One of my favorite examples is how it just randomly Thunder Snows. Not kidding. There is no warning -- if the conditions are right, the storm occurs with snow, not rain, even if the fall isn't quite astrologically winter yet.

You know how stores started selling holiday stuff in October? Well, I don't buy into that right off the bat. But once it starts with the snowing and the grey and the cold, I kind of feel like acknowledging that the season is turning to Yule. After all, Tumblr explodes with images of holly leaves, hot cocoa, pictures of tea cups emblazoned with pentagrams sitting outside of the snow -- lore of the season is especially useful. Any snowscape is perfectly fine for me.

Back to the lore of the seasons --
There are a million different ways that people who practice paganism of any kind can celebrate. There are as many myths as paths, really. My favorite group of myths is the Germanic/Scandinavian types. I was laughing with my roommate last night about how sometimes in certain countries, someone will dress up as a Christmas Gnome and give gifts.

Also, another favorite Scandinavian-type lore piece -- Odin might have been the origin of Santa Claus and his eight reindeer. His eight legged horse, Slepnir might be where the eight reindeer came from. I read somewhere that people would leave carrots out for the horse. The generous ones who did got gifts in exchange from Odin.

Pretty cool, huh?

But yeah. It is the last day of November, and December starts in a few hours so, I'll leave you with Ned Stark....