Kendra Hurteau & Karina Hill

The Yuletide Lenormand

Web site:  http://www.yuletidelenormand.wix.com/yuletidelenormand

Facebook Page:  http://www.facebook.com/pages/Yuletidie-Lenormand/104035706419542

Self-Published, 2012

$30.94 in the USA

$33.94, international

NOTE:  There will be FREE PRIORITY SHIPPING offered for this deck in the next couple of days.  Please click on the order page link above (the first link) to check when FREE priority shipping becomes available so that you can receive this deck in time for Christmas!

 The Yuletide Lenormand is a self-published limited run of 100 decks, so the first edition will be collectible for those of you into collecting decks, as I am.  This is a Lenormand deck, NOT Tarot, and the Lenormand is a very different method of divination.  The deck consists of 36 cards, and for a longer description, please see my earlier review of The Under the Roses Lenormand.  The Yuletide Lenormand is created by the same design team of The Under the Roses Lenormand, and also includes 2 alternative Man & Woman cards (depicted as Snowman and Snowlady), an alternate Ring card (The Wreath), and an alternative Puppy card (The Kitten).  Cards are bridge playing card size, are very supple, and so therefore every easy to shuffle.  The deck comes shrink-wrapped and packaged in a clear plastic box with slightly scalloped edges for a classy touch, a lid that lifts off, and a black velvet pouch for storage.

There are extra cards that bear printed information, which include the following:

• The Basics:  how to read the cards
• 3 Card Layout & 5 Card Layout
• Create-A-Story 12 card layout
• Yuletide Spread: The Wreath, which uses all 36 cards
• Five Keyword cards

Images on the cards reflect the Yuletide season.  This means that images and titles of cards do vary from a traditional Lenormand; however, the interpretations remain identical.  The differences are many and are as follows:

Rider/Cavalier card is the Reindeer, Clover is now Acorns, The Ship is The Sleigh, Tree is Evergreen, Snake is Humbug (which also depicts a woman), Coffin is Yule Log, Bouquet/Flowers is The Stocking, Scythe is Father Time (who does carry his scythe), Whips is Sleigh Whip, Birds are now Partridges, Fox is a Snow Fox, Bear is a Polar Bear, Dog is Puppy (alternative card:  The Kitten), Tower is now a Clock Tower, Garden is Gingerbread, Paths is The North Pole, Heart is Mistletoe, Ring has two cards – a ring in a box and also a Wreath, Book is Storybook, Letter is Greeting Card, Gentleman has the alternative card of The Snowman, Lady has the alternative card of Snowlady, Lily is Poinsettias, Sun is Fireplace, and The Cross has an alternative card, The Candy Cane.

Images are rendered in charming fashion that many will enjoy.  The images are rendered on light sepia backgrounds.  The color palette includes the typical Yuletide colors of red and green, and also includes white, gray, black, brown, yellow, and orange.   Some traditional Lenormand readers may be upset about the change of the title of the cards and of also using imagery that is not traditionally Lenormand.  However, after working with this deck for some time it is clear that the traditional meanings of each card are what is truly stressed.  The imagery does not detract from the reading, and in fact, if you enjoy seasonal readings, the imagery adds a great deal to the seasonal vibe of the reading.  The meanings of the cards do some across so you can do a traditional Lenormand reading with this deck even though much of the imagery is non-traditional.

Here is an example of the Yuletide Lenormand used in a typical Lenormand spread called the 3X3.  This consists of 9 cards.  For my reading below, I am following the method taught by Andy Boroveshengra in his blog, which you can find at:  http://www.learnfortunes.wordpress.com.  This is a passworded blog and you will need to create a WordPress account if you don’t already have one.  The information available here will teach you all you need to know about Lenormand.

The cards are laid out left to right starting with the first row.  Some may choose a significator to represent the topic of their question & place it in the center to be used as the central card.  Personally, I do not do this as I find it very interesting if the subject card shows up elsewhere in the layout. So I choose all nine cards randomly.

My question centers around my desire to have another cat.  My cat Dickens passed away last February after being with me for 17 ½ years and I have come to terms with that, but I dearly miss having feline energy around the house.  My husband and Dickens never got along & merely tolerated one another so he does not want another cat.  My question is if he will open his heart to allow my daughter and I to have another cat.  I drew the nine cards randomly, and since my question centers around a cat I removed the Puppy card and replaced it with the Kitten card.  As you will see, The Kitten does appear in the reading.

Main Theme : denoted by the corners, which are cards 1 & 3 and 3 & 7.  In my reading that would be Snow Fox and Mice, with the second card combination being Greeting Card and Clock Tower.  Fox is a card of deceit, it can also denote work.  Mice is a card of worries, anxieties, fears, something that eats away at you.  Taken together, I read this as my husband’s feelings toward my cat Dickens. He always claimed the cat was tricky, not to be trusted and this comes from ONE incident when he teased Dickens so the cat bit him.  Mice represents my fear that I will never be able to have a cat again. I had at least one cat in my life nonstop from the age of 12 until I was 48.  I can’t imagine my life without a cat.

The second combination for the Main Theme is Greeting Card (traditionally The Letter) and Clock Tower (traditionally Tower).  Greeting Card represents receiving news in writing or it can represent paperwork.  Clock Tower represents an authority. This can be an institution of any kind, the law, a doctor, and so on.  Taken together, Greeting Card and Clock Tower speak of receiving some written news or information from some type of an authority.  This may or may not be a good thing.  This is a good case of the Lenormand cards providing a person with extra information not covered by the scope of their question.  I shall have to keep an eye out for some type of written communication.

Next, we look at the Inner Cross (cards 2, 4, 6 & 8) that provides the answer to the question or tells you what is really going on.  The Inner Cross for this reading consists of The Child + Midnight Moon + Kitten + Home.  We have only one child, so at first glance I would take this to be our daughter who is 14.  However, Dickens was my baby, so The Child may represent him.  Midnight Moon represents fame, recognition, and creativity.  Taken together as a card combination The Child + Midnight Moon may indicate that our daughter may have some positive influence in the situation.  I know that she dearly wishes to have another cat, however, due to my husband’s reaction when I asked him if we could get one, she’s afraid to bring up the subject with him.  However, he is aware that she also wants a cat.

The second card combination is Kitten + Home.  Literally, this is to be taken as Kitten comes to the home.  However, it can be interpreted in two ways.  It can either mean that I will get my wish and my husband will break down and allow us to get another cat, OR, it can merely be indicating my wish to have another cat around the house.  Lenormand 2-card combinations are read as the first card being the subject and the second card being the adjective so it describes the first card, the subject, in greater detail.  Since the subject here is Kitten, this of course is a cat.  I take that to be very literal considering it is the topic of my question. The second card, Home, gives more details about the Kitten card.  So, read in this manner Home indicates the house itself, domesticity, security, and family.  Read in this manner the card combination indicates a kitten is coming to our home at some point, hopefully in the not too distant future (note:  The Kitten card is in the third column which is Future time).

 Extra important information that may or may not be related to the question is provided by cards 1 + 3 + 8 and cards 7 + 9 + 2.  For this reading the combinations would be:  Snow Fox, Greeting Card & Home; and, the second card combination would be Clock Tower, Mice, and Child.  I take the first card combination to be quite literally as it’s an issue that has been weighing on my mind.  I have been sick from a sinus infection since the end of October and am on my fifth round of antibiotics.  I haven’t felt up to shopping for Christmas and every year I make my own Christmas cards.  This year I haven’t felt up to making any, so I haven’t gotten any ready to mail.  I have felt bad about this, but then I look at all the work it entails and I simply don’t have the energy. The smallest of efforts seem to tire me out.  So I take Snow Fox as one of its meanings being work to indicate that, and Greeting Card is taken quite literally to be actual Christmas greeting cards I have yet to make or buy.  Home is sending those cards off to other people’s homes.  The cards are just saying it would be nice if I could manage to do this.  I hope to do so this week.

The second card combination is concerning to me.  Clock Tower is an authority or some type of institution, Mice is worries/fears/anxieties, and Child would be my daughter.  So, since she is involved here I take the institution to represent her school.  Now, I laid out these cards 2 days before the massacre of the children at Sandy Hooks Elementary school in Connecticut.  However, the same day I laid them out, there was a gun scare at our daughter’s middle school.  It was rumored some kid was bringing guns to school the next day.  So on Thursday they had police officers and gun-sniffing dogs all over my child’s school.  Kids were informed and met informally with the officers during their first period classes to try to avoid anyone becoming traumatized by the events.  The previous day the school authorities had determined the whole thing to be a hoax and had the kids involved, but took extra precautions the next day just in case they were wrong.  The police officers did not find any weapons at my daughter’s school, I am very happy to report.  So, in reading this card combination, after this event and the massacre at Sandy Hooks Elementary, I read this as being very worried about my daughter during her school day.  I worry something awful may occur, and this is Texas where there are no concealed gun laws and anyone can easily purchase a gun unless you are a felon.  I am always sure to send her to school surrounded in white light for protection.  Now I also project that light to surround her entire school and the school grounds.  These days we never know what horrible things could occur, and that’s what I take this card combination to be speaking about:  my concern and worry about her while she is at school.

Next, the 3 X 3 is read in columns.  The first column is the past, the middle is the present, and the right column is the future.  Already this spread and the Lenormand have provided a great deal of information, but the reading of the 3X3 is only half complete.

 Past:  We have Snow Fox + Midnight Moon + Clock Tower:  this is very clear to me based on what’s going in my life right now.  My work (Fox) is currently all centered around Art. I have one Manifestation Mandala that I just completed today (so 3 days after I laid out this reading), I have a second Manifestation Mandala order still pending, an order for a Soul Portrait just came in last week, and I am also working hard on my forthcoming deck, The Egyptian Lenormand, that I hope to have completed by December 30^th.  So, all my work right now is clearly centered around my art and creativity (Midnight Moon), and Clock Tower, the card of authority and institutions is telling me I need to remain organized about it and to maintain a schedule, which is very true, otherwise I’ll never meet my deadlines.

 Present:  Child + Father Time + Home:  Child can represent either my daughter or my cat, Dickens.  Father Time is the Scythe card for this deck.  The Scythe represents cutting, cuts and getting hurt, endings, sometimes even severe illness and/or death.  Home is the house and family.  So what we have here is a Child being cut or removed from the Home.  I take this to be Dickens passing away last February.  His passing is the reason behind my question and the reading because now that I’ve healed from him dying I am now ready for another cat.  Another interpretation, however, is that the Child is my daughter, Father Time is my fear of her being taken away from me, and Home indicates my fear of her being taken from our home, as in being killed in a school shooting.  Although not a factor at the exact time of the day I laid out these cards, an hour later I got the phone call from her school about the gun threat.  It’s amazing how the Lenormand can pick up on things of which we are not in any way aware of, yet a few hours or days later we discover exactly what they were trying to tell us.

Future:  Greeting Card + Kitten + Mice.  Greeting Card is the same as the traditional Letter card, so here it denotes correspondence of the written kind.  Kitten is the cat I wish to have.  Mice is my fears and worries that the cat will never materialize.  Taken together, it seems that what this indicates is correspondence about my worries about not having a cat.  I have posted to one of my Facebook groups about this asking for prayers that my husband’s heart opens to the idea.  I have also written about the issue several times with friends in email, and now this blog, which also represents written communication.  Perhaps the cards are telling me that the more I talk about it the more easily I can diminish my fears of never having a cat again.

Now that the Past, Present, and Future columns have been read it’s time to read the diagonals, which will provide even more information.  Diagonal 1 is cards 1 + 5 + 9 and Diagonal 2 is cards 3 + 5 + 9.  NOTE:  if you prechoose a significator card it goes in position 5 so for the diagonals it would be discussed twice.

Diagonal 1:  Snow Fox + Father Time + Mice ~ I see Father Time as putting a definite end to the Snow Fox, which I take to be my husband’s attitude that all cats are sneaky little jerks.  He saw Dickens as being tricky and hateful when he was nothing of the sort, not with me or with my daughter.  Mice diminishes the card before it, which is Father Time, identical to the Scythe, so the card of cutting and ending.  I see Mice here as representing a decrease in my husband’s distrust of cats so that hopefully soon his heart will open to the idea of getting another one.

 Diagonal 2:  Greeting Card + Father Time + Clock Tower ~  News arriving in written form or some form of paperwork (Greeting Card) about something ending or being cut away (Father Time), and the news may be coming from some type of an institution (Clock Tower).  When I first laid these cards last Thursday I had no clue what this could mean.  However, events unfolded today and now I see exactly what it means.  Our daughter has an issue with doing her homework and turning it in on time.  She had told my husband she had turned in an assignment last week on the date it was due.  We have ways of checking her grades on the computer and when he checked today he saw she had a zero for that assignment, which shouldn’t have been the case.  He emailed the teacher who emailed him back saying that she had not turned in the assignment until today so she would adjust our daughter’s grade later on. Meanwhile, since her assignment is turned in late she will only get 50% on it, which is an F, failing.  Our daughter had been on a good streak of turning everything in on time and doing a good job.  However, now with this late assignment (which was also a major grade so it really hurts her overall average in that class), her streak has come to an end (Father Time).  My husband and I are lowering the boom tonight. No TV, computer, or iPod until Friday.  Our daughter will have a fit, but she must learn how wrong it is to lie.

The above is a good example of how the Lenormand picks up on things going on around you that involve you perhaps only indirectly, but still create an impact on your life.  I am sure for the coming week there will be much whining and gnashing of teeth from that kid, but that’s just too bad for her.  She needs to learn.

Now that we’ve done the Diagonals, another way to read this spread is you can read across in rows.  So, here we go.

 The top row represents thoughts.  Here we find  Fox + Child + Greeting Card.  My initial interpretation I had written in my notes is, “deceitful child who says she has completed her assignments when she hasn’t.”  Well, this is now a MAJOR issue in our house for today.  This has been weighing heavily on my mind because our daughter starts high school next year and she wants to go to Rice University here in Houston & that’s a fine school that requires GREAT grades.  She’s an A/B student, in the National Junior Honor Society, but still I worry.  So this has been on my mind a LOT this school year.

 The center row represents feelings.  Here we have Midnight Moon + Father Time + Kitten ~ one of the meanings of Midnight Moon is recognition, also creativity.  I have been really focused on my art a lot lately as I’m creating my own Egyptian Lenormand deck.  Paired with Father Time, things ending or being cut out, I have been ill for weeks with a sinus infection and that has definitely seriously cut into my creative time.  Kitten is also here, which is the topic of my question.  I am wondering if this can be taken another way, as in “recognition of a deceased cat,” because I do sense my cat Dickens around the house and just the other day I actually heard him meow twice so I know he’s still with me.

 The bottom row represents external factors beyond our control.  Here I received Clock Tower + Home + Mice ~  well, if this doesn’t spell out the HOA (Home Owner’s Association) of our subdivision, I don’t know what does.  Clock Tower is an authority, Home is the house.  So Home is saying this authority has to do with our home or property.  That could only be the HOA.  Mice, well, that’s worries and anxieties or small things eating away at you.  Taken together, looks like we may hear something from our HOA who are forever complaining if you don’t get your trash can off the street fast enough after the sanitation crew has been here to pick up the trash.  Or they think you have one too many weeds in your yard, and so on.  They are forever sending out letters to the residents.  I figure they’re going to send another and it’s going to set my husband off, as usual.  So nothing new here, unfortunately.

This is how the 3X3 spread works and how the Lenormand can provide a great deal of information and details in a reading.  The Yuletide Lenormand, as you have just seen in my lengthy sample reading, works well with a traditional Lenormand spread as the cards have traditional Lenormand interpretations.  The cards work very well together, they look lovely in a spread as you can see, and I am sure that those who are old hands at Lenormand as well as newcomers would enjoy The Yuletide Lenormand immensely.