~ An ancient pagan tradition is to take any decorations from your solstice (Christmas tree clippings, fir branches, snowflake paper cuttings) and burn them in your Imbolc fire while dancing and chanting “Now we banish Winter! Now we welcome spring!” I keep my Christmas tree until Imbolc, and I cut it down into smaller pieces to use for my Imbolc ritual fire, and compost the rest. You can also use the wood to make wands, coasters, etc. Get creative! It is charged with loving energy!

~ Another ancient Imbolc ritual is known as the Bride’s Bed. The year before, during the Autumnal Equinox, a bundle of wheat, grain or a bunch of corn was ritually bundled and brought into the house. In ancient times this would have been the last sheaf of wheat or the last row of corn harvested as it was believed that the Spirit of the Grain Goddess retreated into and resided in the last grains. The last of the grain is then the first seed of the next harvest - and here we are again as sacred humans weaving these cycles of birth, death and rebirth. The bundle was often made to look like a human figure and it if were a bundle of corn, it would often have 3 ears representing the triple Goddess ~ the maiden, mother and crone. On Imbolc, this grain Goddess would sometimes be dressed as a bride and a ritual with white candles around her would bless the Corn Bride and the Great Mother. This Corn or Grain Goddess was then often hung on the day after Imbolc (without her wedding dress) in front of the door as an amulet of protection, prosperity and fertility. She can be hung where the yule wreath was hung before and remains there through the harvest season, past Samhain and then returning to the Earth before the next Yule. Her seeds can be scattered in the fields or used to feed birds when returning to the whole. 

~ In pre-Christian Ireland, Imbolc was celebrated as the Goddess Bridgid’s Day. Brigid is the mighty Celtic Triple Goddess of the healers, of the flame and the sacred wells, of inspiration, art & poetry, healing, childbirth, and smithcraft. Her name means “exalted one.”
In the middle ages, according to medievalist Pamela Berger, Christian “monks took the ancient figure of the mother goddess and grafted her name and functions onto her Christian counterpart, St. Brigid of Kildare.”