Yule Eve this year is Friday, December 20. Yule Day arrives Saturday the 21st at 12:04 AM EST, so that in time-zones further west it would arrive on the 20th. And in successive years the calendar day on which Yule arrives varies. So there's something too fussy about observing the yearly turn-about from the Sun-at-noon lower in the sky each day with the day-length growing shorter, to the opposite. For the ancients this change-over to the better, promising the inevitable arrival of Spring even though it was now the depth of cruel Winter with much more, and maybe worse, to come, was a cause for celebration ("Fear not, it won't last forever. Rejoice!"). So a feast-day was held, after frank acknowledgement of one's wretched entrapment in fell Winter's grip, which called for strength of heart to endure the Long Cold yet ahead. That having been said, to buck everyone up a raid was mounted on the winter stores, even though they must last well into Spring to keep off starvation, to mount a defiant jolly Yule-feast to celebrate, help on, the waxing of the Sun, the coming triumph of Day and Light and Warmth, with time-honored offerings made to the Lord Ing, patron God of Good Things, and also to the elvish wights who assist him, to acknowledge their care and aid by sharing with them the bounties of the feast.
The Norse celebrated Yule for the twelve days after Yule Eve, which unbeknownst to them would then last about til Perihelion, when the Earth is closest to the Sun in its orbiting; so, another solar festival. The Anglo-Saxons called the months bracketing Yule "Early Yule" and "Later Yule"; in sum, the "Yule-tide". And so maybe Yule should be celebrated with a jolly, hopeful state of mind not tied down to calendar dates, though it is good to have that drama at the precise time of change-over from the decline of the Sun to its rise again, like a Midwinter sun-rise at Stonehenge. It's nice to have traditions to observe, but since the Yule-tide is now dominated by the Christian holiday and its elaborate Christmas culture, maybe each of us should celebrate the original pagan nature-festival as suits us best, drawing on what we know of the Yule observances of the Northern folk, and whatever of what for a Deep Ecologist seems fitting from the generally horrid commercial and religious campaign surrounding Christmas that dominates the season. As for the "deeper" meaning of Yule, more later.
By the way, the famous etymologist Walter M. Skeat linked "Yule" (Old English "geola", Norse "jol") with "jolly" (from Norse to Norman-French?) and with "yowl", all connoting festivity. So, at four minutes after midnight (or whatever), be out there with your pack yowling "Jolly Yuuuuuuuuuuuuuule!".
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