„Æftera Geóla" means „after Yule": the second of the two Yule months, opening the young year after the longest night. The feast of Jól falls on the full moon of the first lunar month after the winter solstice.
Name & Meaning
Bede reports that the Anglo-Saxons began their year on the night of 24–25 December, which they called Módraniht – „Mothers’ Night". The two months around the solstice were called Geóla (Yule): the Ærra Geóla before, the Æftera Geóla after. In the German folk calendar January is Hartung or ice-moon – the hard, icy month.
Work & Custom
Deepest winter is a time of rest and the workshop: tools and gear are mended, baskets woven, tales told by the hearth-fire. The stores want guarding and rationing, for the new harvest is far off. In the picture-calendars of the „Labours of the Months" January sits by the warming fire – the time belongs to the house.
Bede’s Testimony
They began the year on the eighth day before the Kalends of January, where we now keep the Lord’s Nativity; and that very night … they called Módraniht, that is, „Mothers’ Night".
— Bede, De temporum ratione ch. 15 (transl. after Wallis).
Sources
Bede, De temporum ratione ch. 15 (De mensibus Anglorum); Faith Wallis (transl.), Bede: The Reckoning of Time (1999); German month names in Einhard, Vita Karoli 29 (Wintarmanoth).