Spooky Paganism in the House?

The Holly Reflection

All this year I've been researching the lives of pre-Christian communities for my new novel and have become very sympathetic with the Pagan outlook.
So when G brought in whole swathes of holly and ivy from the garden and I started to decorate the house for Christmas I was visited by a very spooky feeling that echoed down to me through two millennia: the feeling of having lived other lives.

Bodes well for the book?

The Holly and the Ivy

"THE custom of decking houses and churches with ever-greens, towards the close of the year, appears to be of very ancient date ; it being, in fact, one of those remnants of Paganism, which, although forbidden by the councils of the early Christian Church, had obtained too strong a hold on the prejudices of the people to be readily relinquished, as its transmission down to the present day serves to prove..."

 From A Garland of Christmas Carols, Ancient and Modern Including Some Never Before Given In Any Collection. Joshua Sylvester, Edited, With Notes. (London: John Camden Hotten, 1861).

I would like to wish a Happy Winter Soltice to all the gentle people across the world

 who take their precious time to visit me at Life twice Tasted

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