My brother-in-law was over the other night. He often is these days. He’s eight years older than my wife; he was away to adulthood while she was a young girl, and we get to know each other more and more these days. We’re both in our 70’s now, he at one end, the Lovely Wife and I at the other. So we fell to talking about “the way things were,” as old people are wont to do. He argued that there were once social rules, and being ex-Green Beret, he used the military as his example. In the military, he said, the same rules apply to everyone. I didn’t point out that, under the UCMJ, the general gets much more deference than the private; and today, especially, the SOD (which the military is properly under, the SOD being a civilian), the rules have been tossed in a shredder as Hegseth fires general officers right and left. It’s a hegemonic move not unlike the white, male privilege he and I grew up under. Although we learned that hegemony as harmony, and Hegseth wields it to hide his weakness; much like the man who appointed him. My brother-in-law is an interesting (and not unusual) mix of conservative political values, and yet fully aware of the injustices done by white hegemony and economic power. Aware of it, and concerned by it. So this wasn’t an argument with a drunk uncle at Thanksgiving. It wasn’t an argument at all. He acknowledged his contradictions, even as he didn’t see any way to resolve them. I sympathize. It took seminary and years of work to change my self enough to eliminate some of the contrary. Even then, it was my adult daughter who pointed out she walked through a world of dangers (from sexual harassment to threats of assault) that I simply didn’t live in. It’s very hard for me to see such worlds; but I have to work to. There is always another perspective than that of the straight, white, middle class heterosexual male. And it’s hard to realize that perspective shouldn’t be normative.
Like other things we take for granted, such as the experiences of our youth. We talked about Hallowe’en as we remembered it. But we didn’t think about this:
Maybe it’s the corn syrup talking, but to me, Halloween will always be the quintessential American holiday. The Fourth of July and Thanksgiving don’t come close. Plenty of countries, dictatorships included, commemorate their nation’s founding and designate evenings to spend with relatives. Halloween is a night when kids visit strangers, people with no blood ties and no debt to their family, and receive gifts with no obligation in return. It is an exercise in civic trust, a belief in one’s neighbors regardless of religion, creed or political party. It’s a cheesy, cheery, schmaltzy, “Brady Bunch” optimism. My family and countless others have crossed oceans for it.
That’s the perspective of a young boy, a Russian immigrant, on his first Hallowe’en. So, add to my categories above, “American.” Growing up American, it never occurred to me that Hallowe’en was an act of civic trust. I know there’s “trunk or treat” parties, now, and the distinctly suburban neighborhoods of my childhood are not common even here in Houston. My street is a passageway. The street I grew up on was traveled only by neighbors. For three years after we moved here, we lived in a parsonage next to the church, on a busy four lane road. The nearest neighborhoods were miles down the road. We drove my daughter to friends’ neighborhoods. We certainly couldn’t let her walk out the front door, as I did when I was her age. Today there are barely any children in our neighborhood. We don’t buy candy, because no one comes to take it. But if they started up again, if children moved to the neighborhood, we’d open the door to them, without hesitation. “Trick or treat!” 🎃
It occurs to me that the two great civic occasions in America are founded on Xian holidays (holy days), but they are both exercises in civic trust. Xmas may be uncomfortable, even oppressive, to non-Xians, but the secular observance has nothing to do with Xianity. Maybe the Xmas tree is the ancestor of the
Paradeisbaum from German passion plays, but who is really aware of that? The shapes and sizes and colors that go up in public, from trees to abstract streamers wrapped around a missing cone, are simply symbols of a public holiday. Is Santa Claus really St. Nicholas, or just a jolly old elf in a red coat? Separated entirely from Epiphany, gifts on Xmas morning are practically a private, civic duty. The culture tells us to never disabuse children of the “truth” about Santa, and even if we never fully live up to it, once a year it’s another civic creed that it is better to give than to receive. If any of this is oppressive to non-Xians, it isn’t meant to be. The season is so secular everyone is invited to join, and almost nobody wants to go to church when Xmas is on a Sunday (except the Catholics, who started it. The religious descendants of the Puritans who banned Christmas now, more often than not, close church that one Sunday every seven years or so.) Thanksgiving is purely secular, but private (Christmas morning is, too). July 4th, especially in these times, could easily be jingoistic and mean, when “patriotism” is confined to “true patriots,” which may not include you. But Xmas? That’s the season (a whole month!) when we’re supposed to open our hearts and welcome the stranger and feed the hungry and clothe the naked. Or at least think about doing it. As Charles Dickens so famously put it:
"At this festive season of the year, Mr. Scrooge," said the gentleman, taking up a pen, "it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the Poor and Destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time. Many thousands are in want of common necessaries; hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts, sir."
Dickens wouldn’t recognize our Xmas celebrations at all; but he’d recognize that we still pay attention to that sentimen, and still try to apply it at least one month in the year.
Hallowe’en is not as big as that; but maybe that makes it the gateway to Xmas; a smaller civic celebration that really is an act of civic trust, to get us ready to open our doors to friends (for parties), and, at least a little bit, to strangers, to whom we offer a bit more than candy. Every year I get appeals, starting in October, from charities pointing out that Xmas is coming. It’s the time of year we are expected, and expect, to give.
As the Russian immigrant said, reflecting on his childhood and his then confused grasp of English:
Triko-reet once a lifetime was very good. Triko-reet once a year was biblical.
Hallowe’en is when we open our doors, no longer to waits and a’soalers seeking free holiday treats, then to children seeking a bit of free candy, or, if they are very lucky, a homemade popcorn ball. We have just displaced the Yuletide practice four weeks, and are showing charity to children. Not because the first day of
Dias de Los Muertos is for the return of the dead children, but…why not? We can make of our holidays what we will. Instead of cursing the darkness, light a candle!🕯️ Preferably in a jack o’ lantern. 🎃
Our late year eves are the connectors between our civic holidays. Even Mardi Gras is the day before Ash Wednesday. Hallowe’en (Walpurgisnacht in “Fantasia”) gives way to All Saints; Xmas Eve yields st midnight to Xmas Day (“Christ is born, Christ is born, Christ is born,” whispered among the believers); New Year’s Eve to New Year’s Day; and Mardi Gras stops dead at midnight, yielding to Ash Wednesday and the preparation for Easter. All of these eves mean something to us, and the effect is cumulative. We celebrate Easter, but not like Mardi Gras. We celebrate July 4th, but not like Hallowe’en. It starts at Hallowe’en, and ends at Ash Wednesday, and we don’t do anything closely similar to those 12 or so weeks the rest of the year. The eves are the gateway to the great celebrations, and have become the great celebrations themselves. Are these things good, or bad? “what do I know, except what everyone knows - /if there when Grace dances, I should dance.”
Surely Grace is dancing in the season of our eves. And if Grace dances, we should….
