The Yuletide and New Year’s Eve Celebrations in the SS

Source: The SS Family - Procedures for Conducting Family Celebrations by Fritz Weitzel

 

The Yuletide Celebration

 

We celebrate Yuletide in the evening, not in the morning. Yuletide is the feast of the new-born light and the renewing life. Therefore, it is the feast of the commemoration of the birth of the child, of thanks to the mother, of good wishes for the growth of the whole Folk. The reason for our giving presents at Yuletide is to show respect to other members of our Folk for the part they play in its continued existence.

 

In Germany Yuletide is therefore a feast for the closer and wider family, which tends to exclude outsiders but for which a long-lost son or one living far away is always welcome to return.

 

The presents, which are only valuable if the giver has himself worked on them, are secretly put under the Tree by the father. When everything is ready the family gathers in the adjoining room for the evening meal. The table should be festive and laid with care. This is the start of the Yuletide celebration.

 

The meal is substantial and the main course should consist of carp, goose, boar, or hare. These animals have traditionally been eaten at the Yuletide meal and should never be replaced by other food.

 

The meal should begin with a short speech by the father and end with a reference to the coming delights.

 

Not only the presents but the whole celebration should be full of surprises for all the members of the family. The father lights the candle in the Jul Earthenware Candlestick, from which the tree candles get their light. On the Tree should be 13 (12 months plus the 13th renewing) or 27 (3 lunar weeks each with 9 days) candles. He leaves three candles, which are close together, unlit. He now calls the wife, the children, and any other family members into the room using a little bell. As they admire the Tree the father lights the last three candles and says:

 

This light should burn for our ancestors who are with us tonight. This light should burn for my dead comrades from the War, and this light should burn for our millions of German brothers all over the world, who all celebrate Yuletide with us tonight.

 

After this all should sing the song O Yuletide Tree, How Green Are Your Branches, without which the Yuletide Celebration is unthinkable, and open their presents. The evening should be quiet and sincere. At the appointed time the whole family will listen to the Yuletide address of the Deputy of our Leader and will feel through it a bond reaching out from the close family to encompass the whole Folk of German brothers. During the evening the family photographs should be shown, old family stories told, and thoughts about the success of research into the family history exchanged.

 

 

New Year’s Eve and The Earthenware Candlestick

 

Yuletide Eve is followed by the Twelve Sacred Days. Those days were important feast days for our ancestors and nobody worked during this time. Wotan and his Army of the Dead were said to ride through the air, and Frigga, or Lady Holle, leads the Army of The Unborn above the heads of the Folk.

 

We should light the candles on the Tree as often as possible during these days. During the night of New Year’s Eve the celebrations reach another pinnacle. The happenings of Yuletide are repeated, and again we say goodbye to the old and look hopefully to the future.

 

The last evening of the year is a very jolly time. The children have bought small fireworks and have their own fun. Mother fetches the spoon for the casting of the lead. This spoon should only ever be used for this purpose. The lead is melted on the spoon and cast into a bowl of cold water. The resulting figures and shapes foretell the future. Greeting cards are sent to distant relatives, the punch fills the house with its aroma, and the evening meal should be as grand as the one at Yuletide.

 

At midnight, when the candles on the Yuletide Tree are burnt down, the SS Man will put the Jul Earthenware Candlestick on the table. This Candlestick with its year candle has been lit at every family celebration during the last year. Therefore, its candle has burned down. It should therefore receive a new light tonight. Just as our ancestors never let the sacred hearth cooking fire extinguish, so our SS Jul Earthenware Candlestick must always have a light. So, the candlestick becomes a symbol of the never dying sunlight. Everyone becomes very thoughtful when finally the old year candle burns down and the new one is put in its place.

 

The Julleuchter – Jul Earthenware Candlestick

 

Presented by Reich Leader of the SS Himmler, the Jul Earthenware Candlestick is the essential symbol used by the SS family throughout the year to mark celebrations and commemorations.