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Some call it the "festive period" or "holiday season", but there's another word that's often used, even if its meaning isn't well understood: Yuletide. You might have heard it in Christmas carols like 'Deck the Halls' or 'Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas', or seen it mentioned in connection with Yule logs or Yule balls, like in the Harry Potter films. But what does Yule or Yuletide actually mean, and where did it come from? If you look up "Yuletide," online, you'll find it described as an old-fashioned word for Christmas.
Dictionary.com says it's "the Christmas season" and explains that it was originally a pagan holiday celebrated by ancient Germanic people around the winter solstice, which some modern pagans still observe. The word Yuletide comes from two Old English words: "geol", meaning Yule or Christmas, and "tid", meaning time or season.
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