Let’s Celebrate Something

Holidays like today are sometimes grand, goofy things that take on social lives of their own, unrelated to the occasion, and accidentally reveal something of their societies.

Few holidays are holy-days anymore, but holidays do adopt a ritualistic aspect, no matter the society. Japan has one holiday each for boys and girls (though both sexes observe both) and turns New Year’s into a weeklong observance that, believe it or not, has nothing to do with bowl games.

Many societies feel the need for a holiday to start summer and another that brings warm weather to an approximate close. Not every nation was smart enough to schedule its revolution for a midsummer break like the United States (July 4) and France (July 14). Canada had no revolution but picked July 1 anyway.

Numerous societies observe a thanksgiving associated with harvests; the autumn dates vary by harvest times, with Korea’s, for instance, coming in early fall and Canada’s in early October.

Some people think American Thanksgiving comes in late November because the Detroit Lions traditionally played football on Thursday then. Actually, the link is between the New England Pilgrims and the North American Indians, neither of whom owned a team.

Many heroes get their own day of state or national observance. America’s first president, George Washington, and its 16th president, Abraham Lincoln, once had separate winter holidays to celebrate their birthdays, until some calendrical connivers claimed that, presidential mothers aside, both men were born on the same day, a Monday to be called Presidents Day.

The idiosyncrasies of some holidays do not translate well. One day an American found himself explaining to newly arrived Southeast Asian refugees the secular observance of Easter in their new homeland. The explanation began with a warm description of families coloring eggs in spring hues. But the explanation--and translation--slowed noticeably as it described parents on Easter morning calmly announcing that during the night a giant rabbit had broken into their home to hide dozens of chicken eggs. The newcomers’ faces were blank, even before they heard of chocolate-fueled children fighting to find the most eggs, destined to become many school lunches. The Santa Claus tale was postponed.

Properly conditioned, however, anyone can perfectly understand how this glorious holiday today honoring good, honest, decent labor is celebrated nationally by doing no work whatsoever.