It’s the Holiday Season!

A ritual is simply a repeated pattern of doing something. Magical rituals repeat formats that have been shown to be effective in the past. Seasonal rituals are those that repeat stories and practices of the past. One of the most common rituals for this time of the year is when we sit down, make a list, and ask ourselves, "What am I going to give my friends and relatives?"

There are expensive gadgets we can purchase, but does 87-year-old Aunt Clara really want an iPhone? Does your friend Frank, a fundamentalist Christian, really want a beautiful quartz crystal cluster? Flowers are always a safe gift, but they are simply thrown away after a week or two. There are, however, great gifts you can find at www.llewellyn.com that are perfect for any specific person.

For example, do you know someone who is always complaining about how they miss the way things used to be done? A perfect gift for such a person is Dorothy Morrison's Yule. It is filled with information on how this holiday is celebrated around the world, including crafts and recipes that will bring back the spirit of peace, love, and harmony.

Do you need a gift for someone who loves fine art? I would suggest a Tarot deck such as the Golden Tarot of Klimt Deluxe. Gustav Klimt was an early twentieth-century Austrian artist, and this deck is filled with his art as well as art inspired by his symbolist style. Klimt was influenced by art from all over the world, and it comes through in his elegant and sensual style. This is like having a collection of seventy-eight masterpieces enhanced by brilliant gold leaf accents. It's also an ideal gift for Tarot readers looking for something that is both new and unique, yet follows traditional images and interpretations. It includes a beautiful satin bag imprinted with one of Klimt's striking illustrations.

How about something for someone who loves a good, spooky story? The perfect gift for them is Donald Tyson's Alhazred. This is a terrifying story in the tradition of H.P. Lovecraft's "Cthulhu Mythos" stories, one of strange horrible gods that are trying to conquer our world and subject it to their whims. The key to understanding and stopping them (we hope!) is in the book called The Necronomicon by the "Mad Arab Abdul Alhazred." But what strange, mind-numbing experiences drove the author mad? You'll find out in this amazing tale of terror.

For your friends who are magicians, there is one book that is taking the world by storm, The Complete Magician's Tables by Stephen Skinner. Magicians use correspondences to help design rituals, spells, talismans, and amulets. This is the most complete book of such correspondences ever published, more than four times the size of Crowley's Liber 777! It collects information from a wide variety of classic texts as well as unpublished medieval grimoires and Kabbalistic works. It's amazing in its scope and unrivaled in its usefulness.

Wherever you go on www.llewellyn.com , you'll find gifts that are perfect for everyone on your holiday list, gifts that will be appreciated for many years to come.