The old feast of Wotan is on Jul 16th. In olden days the God of our ancestors drove through the air, visited his
people, was friendly to them, and left them little presents. He wanted to announce the start of the Winter Solstice
season and the coming of the New Year.
The christian church couldn't suppress these yearly visits of this white bearded, one eyed leader of the good
Spirits. So they put one of its assumed saints, St. Nikolaus, in his place.
But in many areas of Germany the Schimmelreiter -- Rider On A White Horse, also known as Hruodprecht --
Ruprecht -- The One Shining With Glory = Wotan, or simply Father Yuletide remained. SS Families should gather together and make the visit of Father Yuletide a memorable event for the children.
They will thank them for it in years to come. But where a visit cannot be arranged, all members of the family
should put their Jul Plates on the window sill. They will find them in the morning filled with apples, nuts, and
hand formed biscuits, the first messengers of the coming feast.
Every member of a family should have his or her own Jul Plate. When a child is born, it should be presented
with this Plate at the Ceremony Of Name Giving. It should be an old pewter plate, wooden plate, or a ceramic
plate decorated with the Tree Of Life and lettering. As this Plate is used throughout the whole life, it should be
beautiful, but not too large. It is used on birthdays to put the candles on it, on Wotan's Day, Yuletide Day, and
New Year's Day for presents, on Easter Sunday for the Easter Eggs, on the Harvest Festival for apples, during
the Wedding Ceremony for bread and salt, and during the Funeral Service the Light Of Life should extinguish
whilst on it.
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Ceramic Jul Plate
Produced by the SS porcelain firm of Porzellan-Allach GmbH for Yuletide, 1941, and available for public purchase; the Plate
has a green border with symbolic Tree Of Life motifs on the lower rim; the centre of the Plate is decorated with snowdrops
