A Yule Gratitude Jar

A softly lit Yule altar with glowing candles and a gratitude jar wrapped in leafy ribbon. A white ornament reads “Longest Night Brightest Spirit,” honoring the return of the light on the darkest night of the year.

It’s almost Yule, the darkest and longest night of the year. As the days grow shorter and the nights stretch long, I’ve been drawn to traditions that honor warmth, light, and reflection.

I was listening to The Pagan Portal Podcast about Yule today. It’s a podcast I really love because the women are so wise and inviting, and they all do their own thing with their practice. They support each other’s differences.

One of them shared that every Yule she creates a gratitude jar for the year. I love the concept of gratitude, yet I’ve had a hard time keeping up with the practice. I tend to complicate it to the point that I stop doing it.

The gratitude jar is easy and fun. I’ve created one, and throughout the next year I’ll add little slips of paper with small things to be grateful for. My jar is a 16-ounce mason jar wrapped in a woodsy-themed napkin, tied together with a leafy ribbon.

The jar will hold things like:

• What did I get done today?

• What nice thing happened?

• What insight did I have?

• Did I create art?

• Did I have a good hair day?

• The dogs didn’t bark at the mail carrier.

Whatever matters to me or anyone in my household goes into the jar.

Next year at Yule, we’ll read and remember all of them. Each time something is added to the jar, there’s an intention of gratitude for a life well lived. Then, as we read them with candles and joy during the darkest night of the year, we’ll remember well another year passing.

It feels like a simple way to honor the rhythm of the year, the small moments that make up a life, the light we carry through the dark.