What is a YuLe LoG?

Yule Log History

The tradition of burning a Yule log is believed to have originated in early Germanic or Scandinavian paganism. The tradition began as a winter solstice ritual, when ancient peoples would worry that the light may cease to exist.

The Yule log was originally an entire tree. Families would bring the trunk of the Yule tree inside and stick the big end of it into the fireplace. The log was carved with runes (early Norse/Germanic letters) to wish for the protection of the gods.

The Vikings would save a piece of the log for next year's fire. To let it go out was said to be a dark omen and a sign of bad luck to come.

The first recorded burning of a "Christmas Log" was in poetry in 1648. The term "Yule Log" is first documented in 1686.

In the 10th century Norwegian King Haakon Haraldsson made it law that Yule must be celebrated at Christmas. He put into law that Yule should be celebrated at the same time as Christmas. Everyone was required to have ale from a measure of grain and keep the holiday while the ale lasted or else be subject to a fine.

For Christians, the Yule log took on a symbolic role, representing the stable's warmth where the Infant Christ was born. The Yule log's symbolism is weaved into diverse cultural practices. In England, oak is the wood of choice for the Yule log, while Scotland prefers birch.

My Yule Log Origin

Christmas music soothes my soul...it relaxes me. It always has.

In 2005, I set on a quest to find some of the most unique, obscure Christmas songs to create a "mixtape". At the time, I was probably downloading songs from Napster or Limewire but I found them, downloaded them, and burned them onto a CD. Once I had the CD created, I shared it with my dad.

I titled it "The Yule Log".

Being kind of a weather and Christmas history nerd as well, I had heard that the "Yule Log" was the biggest log of a tree that was burnt to keep warm during the longest night of the year (Winter Solstice) in December. My dad was the only other person who heard my first Yule Log in 2005...and boy was it a doozy.

My memory is fuzzy on what happened between 2006-2007 because I can't find remnants of any Yule Logs from those years.

In 2008, however, the Yule Log was revived. I continued to scour the Internet for unique and obscure Christmas songs building playlists that I would share with my dad each year.

This process typically would start in early October and end around Thanksgiving or the first part of December. For many years, I burned the Yule Log onto CD's and provided unique cover art and a song title list. The physical CD's ended with the 2016 Yule Log.

In the age of streaming media and beginning in 2017, I began building the Yule Logs in Spotify and sharing them with my dad sometime around Thanksgiving. Friends and colleagues have heard about my Yule Log and have taken to listening to them as well so all of my old Yule Logs have been built in Spotify and are available for the public's listening pleasure. :)

Current iterations of the Yule Log typically include catchy original songs or unique versions of traditional Christmas songs that were released from Thanksgiving the year prior to the upcoming Thanksgiving.

You would not believe how hard it is to find new Christmas releases even in the age of the internet and artificial intelligence. I've had to tweak my methods the past few years in order to discover new Christmas music. It's certainly a labor of love as I listen to hundreds of songs before choosing the ones to include on each year's Yule Log.

I hope to continue making Yule Logs as long as I can...like I said, it's like therapy to me.

I hope you enjoy listening to them.

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