Yule is the modern Pagan and Wiccan festival of the winter solstice (around 21 December), the longest night, kept as one of the eight Sabbats of the Wheel of the Year. It marks the turning point at which the sun is at its weakest and, from that night, the days begin slowly to lengthen again; in the common Wiccan myth-cycle it is the moment the Goddess gives birth to the sun-god, so that the darkest night is also the night of the light's rebirth and the festival's theme is hope in the depth of winter. Practitioners keep it with evergreens, holly and mistletoe, candles and the Yule log, feasting, and the exchange of gifts.
Historically, the modern Sabbat should be distinguished from its sources. The word Yule (Old Norse jol, Old English geol) names a genuine pre-Christian Germanic and Norse midwinter season, but the specific eightfold Wheel of the Year on which the modern Yule sits was assembled in the mid-twentieth century, largely through Gerald Gardner and the early Wiccan movement, drawing the four Celtic fire-festivals together with the two solstices and two equinoxes into a single ritual calendar that no ancient people kept as a set. Many customs now attached to Yule, and shared with Christmas, have tangled and much-debated histories rather than a single pagan origin. The festival is thus best understood as a living modern observance that draws, selectively and creatively, on older midwinter tradition.