The Most Wonderful Time of the Year
We may not even think about why we are doing what we are doing, but the accompanying feelings compel us. We have looked forward to it for weeks. This was supposed to be a time of rest, but we make ourselves as busy as ever—even more so, but with few complaints other than the hassle of the inevitable competition in dodging others around us doing the same. Not everyone is equally enthused, but everyone takes part in some way.
We dress in clothes reserved or newly purchased for the occasion. We make appointments with friends and family, and if we are lucky, we even have to send regrets or prepare for serious juggling due to an overabundance of invitations. We buy appropriate foods, some available only this time of year, and we plan long days in our kitchens, looking forward to the culinary projects, perhaps following newly discovered recipes, but more often revisiting long-held family traditions.
Some people are not so lucky. They might feel the social void in their lives even more in these periods. It might bring focus to past losses, times that felt happier, especially linked to such occasions. Others might huddle alone at the fringes of their social world, lacking a family, sufficient wealth or even home. But they too might absorb some of the additionally warmed air and light generated to overcome the cold and darkness. They might also be more readily recognized as a person in the generosity of the season. More likely to receive a helping hand or a greeting, when otherwise they are invisible.
As I write this I am surrounded by cut and decorated trees that at any other time of year would be incongruous in this indoor space, lit in a carefree wealth of colors, decorated with dangling bulbs that reflect the light further, and by strings of false gold and silver that complete the opulence. The mall is busy with shoppers, the café buzzing with those taking a break from shopping or meeting with friends in this convenient social place, the market. The Polish skies are a thick grey, making it difficult to say what time of day it is, only that it is a new day straining to show itself for a few hours. It is the day after Christmas in fact, but the festive atmosphere continues.
Christmas music continues in the background, the same songs heard for nearly a week in a near constant loop, only now slowly being replaced by non-holiday music. “It’s the most wonderful time of the year,” I am told repeatedly, convincingly by a mellifluous voice. And in many ways it is. Somehow, even in the deep cold of winter, with daylight occupying only a third of each 24 hours, very little green in the landscape, and a nearly constant light precipitation that alternates between rain and snow, it does feel like the most wonderful time of the year. This message is repeated in not just the music, but in the tones of voices people use, in the bright and colorful lights, and in the abundant family feasts each day. There is little time for a lack of wonder in this relentless flow.
Some holidays are ”natural,” emerging from the rhythmic flow of life. In this case, it is the darkness and natural retreat of the northern hemisphere winter. Others are “artificial,” designated to celebrate historic events, like national independence or other historic social events. Secular holidays like these are welcome, but not as natural or compelling. They are just dates on the calendar--excuses for a long weekend. The ones with deep roots, the “holy days,” motivated by timeless myths and natural events, seem to emerge inevitably from their times of year.
Holidays are rituals that for most of us have nearly lost their original meanings. Or perhaps these meanings are superfluous anyway, accumulated through the years to further the rituals that predate their surface meanings. There may be evolutionary motives underlying some holidays.
The study of human rituals, like those associated with holiday celebrations, emerged surprisingly from the study of animal behaviors (Stephenson, 2015). When 19th century ethologists recognized animal behaviours that reminded them of stylized rituals—postures or “dances” conducted for communication or community-definition rather than instrumental ends, the connection to human behavior was unavoidable. Ritual was the only concept that seemed to fit to certain complex courtship behaviours or displays of power. Since this time, the definition of “ethology” has expanded to include the biological study of human behaviour, and sociologists, anthropologists and related scholars have further studied with new perspective the numerous formalized patterns of behavior used throughout human communities and passed down through generations. These behaviours, many of which are likely biologically as well as culturally based, have also been offered as one possible origin of the arts. It is assumed that rituals, being simpler and requiring fewer resources, preceded the making of the artefacts that we currently think of as Art (Dissanayake, 1995).
Art making and appreciation as a form of ritual is an appropriate attribution. The relation of ritual to the arts and aesthetic experiences are their assertiveness, their formality, and the value-added meaning provided. Rituals are a way of engaging in the world partially on its terms (the situation calling for celebration) and partially on our own terms (our choices of ritual acts, either individually or communally chosen). They involve anticipation, preparation, and attention at many levels, not just visual appreciation, but also physical and social action--agency, not passive reception. Most obviously, rituals have a pattern that plays out, with a beginning, middle and end, sometimes more directly enacting a sort of story, sometimes just following through on an expected and carefully executed sequence of actions whose meaning is secondary to the care of execution and need for culmination. In some cultures, rituals are included in the list of traditional arts, such as the Japanese Tea Ceremony. Most martial arts have rituals associated with them as well, ones intended to show respect and humility, and not displays of power. Many artists have their own personal rituals used to guide them in making art (Currey, 2013). Several forms of traditional sandpainting, most famously that of Tibetan monks, are more ritual than what we think of as works of Art, even though a product is at least temporarily produced. Tibetan sandpaintings, however, are destroyed upon completion, the ritual having achieved its purpose, an enactment that symbolizes impermanence. While the process of art making can be ritual, this does not make all ritual Art.
Holiday Rituals
That many holiday rituals are associated with changing seasons, or peak celestial events like the solstices and equinoxes, is not difficult to understand. Even in the tropics, where days do not change so much in length over the year, seasons are determined by the onset of relatively rainy and dry periods, which also drive rituals. These climatological periods or celestial events have a deep influence on human behaviour and emotion, and how the initiation of these times transpires can be considered omens of coming success or failure. Note that the Western versions of these holidays originated in the northern latitudes, so their parallels do not line up with those south of the equator.
Holidays, as their name implies, are often connected to religious practices, since the coming seasons themselves are beyond our ability to affect and in the hands of fate or gods. But the associated rituals are a way of attempting human influence. These rituals can be quite serious and far from passive entertainment, meeting one of Dewey’s (1934) criteria for art, and perhaps even meeting the criteria for “great art” (Hildebrand, 2015), given their timelessness and transferability across locations and cultures. Yet rituals, while definitely aesthetic, are not quite the same as Art, which involves agency and/or contingency, and not predictability. But this statement leaves a nagging doubt I will come back to later.
Winter Solstice (e.g., Saturnalia, Christmas, Yule, Hanukkah, Saint-Sylvestre, New Year’s Eve and Day)
Winter is difficult, as anyone living above or below of about 35 degrees North or South latitude knows fully well. In the depths of 21 December, when the sun is at its nadir of influence (in the north), despair is understandable. Cold temperatures and snow that force one indoors can lead to claustrophobic feelings, even “cabin fever.” Low levels of sunlight, exasperated by cloudy weather, is known to cause the mild depression known as “seasonally affective disorder.” But human rituals are perhaps at their strongest during these times in response. Many important holy days occur, times to remind ourselves of the gifts of deities (sometimes associated with their births or deaths) and promoting a hopefulness toward the future. In the darkest days, we gather to share communal feelings and good will, personal gifts to those closest to us and family feasts. We light up the dark skies with decorative baubles, and make more use of candles. We use more positive greetings, which can be as simple and generic as “Happy Holidays” or “Bonnes Fetes,” or more specific, depending on our degree of religious faith. Most notably, we spend money, accounting for the phrase “Black Friday” or the day after American Thanksgiving, as the day retailers become profitable for the year (or “in the black” ink in their accounting ledgers). We make the most of what we have, and some people even go into debt in over-generosity in expectation of a wealthy year to come. Winter holidays bring symbols of prosperity within what might otherwise feel like hopelessness.
Spring Equinox (e.g., Easter, Passover, Walpurgisnacht, May Day, April Fool’s Day)
In Spring hope is renewed. The greening of spring and the possibility inherent in the planting of new crops bring thoughts of rebirth. Spring is associated with fertility rituals, preparing for the prosperity in the growth seasons of Spring and Summer (although more birthdays actually occur in September). In Christian societies it is the time of Easter, and among Jewish, it is the time of Passover, celebrating the Exodus of the Children of Israel, and the forming of a new nation.
Spring is a time of processions and sanctity, even more than the Winter holidays, because it is the symbol of the proof of God’s status. It is also a time of fasting, perhaps linked to the extinguished stores of winter food, before the new crops are available. The Spring holidays extend into May, when Maypole rituals rather conspicuously celebrate fertility with the phallic symbol, a practice captured in one of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s most famous stories in his collection of Twice-Told Tales. The practice of coloring and sharing Easter eggs also likely originated as a fertility symbol, but also has gained Christian connotations.
Ironically, Spring is also a time of fasting, because it is the time when last year's preserved food supplies may be running short. This is preceded, of course, by a final day of extravagant eating, the Mardi Gras, or Fat Tuesday (or some other day of the week, Thursday in many cultures). Feasting and fasting are two of the most common ways to affect our experience of the world, creating altered states of mind, but they also have ritual, biological, and practical bases.
Summer Solstice (Midsummer's Day)
Summer is a time of abundance--food, sun, drink, and the resultant energy. Midsummer festivals are rituals of music, dancing, and food--along with general abandon.
They are also tributes to the beauty and abilities of the body, not only with sparse clothing worn at music festivals and on beaches, but through athletic events. (The early Olympic games combined the two, with nudity being common during much of its ancient period.)
While sports are carried out year round thanks to indoor venues, they flourish during the summer--amateur and professional alike. Sports can be a significant component of rituals, and an individual sport contains many specific rituals, from a coin flip, choice of attire, and the entry to the game. Penalties are imposed for violating ritual behavior. The Olympics are originally an event held near the summer solstice, and in fact a highly ritualized tribute to Zeus. Yet anthropologists generally do not consider sports to be rituals in themselves due to the randomness inherent in its play and outcomes.
Autumn Equinox (Rosh ha-Shanah, Yom Kippur, Thanksgiving, Halloween, Dia de los Muertos, All Saints' Day)
If Summer holidays are about exuberance, Autumn holidays make a strong contrast with their subdued and internal focused. They are more meditative. These are the most of holy of Jewish holidays, times of introspection and repentance. But this is also the time of the final harvest, and a time of reflection before the days of darkness and limited resources ahead. Harvest festivals, like Thanksgiving, offer thanks for all that has been made available during the year.
Autumn holidays are also reflective the coming darkness with their focus on death and honoring ancestors, as with All Saints Day. This time of year was considered by Celtic peoples to blur the boundaries between the living and the dead. Halloween is an outcome of this focus, with its celebration of spirits and other dark side manifestations, intended to ward off the most evil spirits, but welcome those that might help predict the future given their knowledge of the other side. Halloween, which began as the Celtic Samhain, is marked by bonfires as offerings to the spirits, and by decorations and costumes that recall the dead.
Art and Ritual
I have warned against leaping to the conclusion that rituals are a form of Art, even though this is a tempting idea, especially given the grandeur of Easter processions, color of Buddhist monasteries and eloquence of Japanese Tea Ceremonies. Several times in this blog, I have also suggested that questions that try to define what is and is not Art are relatively useless, because one can almost always find counterexamples. If we ask instead, “What experiences have the potential to be aesthetic?,” the answers are less difficult to challenge, and in this case, ritual fits well the criteria offered.
Rituals are no doubt opportunities to express intent, be present, and offer openness and trust. They are also situations with immediate, compelling, resonant, and coherent qualities. However, a question comes when we consider the situational requirement of malleability, the ability to assert agency and make a situation our own. This aspect of ritual has been questioned by those who argue that ritual requires a commitment to give up authorship of your own actions (Stephenson, 2015). Rituals are a form of template or guide to action that allow for little personal modification if they are true to the spirit of ritual. This conclusion would be damning to any consideration of ritual as art.
But as Stephenson (2015) goes on to show, others argue that simple actions, even repetitive, scripted actions, even spoken or chanted words, can have “the potential and power to impact one’s intentions, emotions, feelings, and beliefs.” Ritual has a performance aspect not unlike theatre and dance, and does leave room for interpretation, at least internally, and certainly leaves room for developing new attitudes or states of mind over time. In fact, it is not working if one is just “going through the motions.” This is one of the primary reasons for conducting rituals, to shape our lives and ourselves.
Holiday celebrations are special forms of rituals in that they are widely and simultaneously practiced. They arise from the pervasive ambiance created by a broader community, by seasonal characteristics, and by our biological nature responding to these.
References
Dewey, John (1934/1989) Art as Experience. In Jo Ann Boydston (ed.), The Collected Works of John Dewey, 1882-1953, Volume 10. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.
Dissanayake, Ellen (1995) Homo aestheticus. Seattle: University of Washington Press.
Hildebrand, David (2015) Art is not entertainment: John Dewey’s Pragmatist defense of an aesthetic distinction, Southwest Philosophy Review, (31/1), January 2015, pp. 225 - 234, DOI: 10.5840/swphilreview201531123.
Stephenson, Barry (2015) Ritual: A very short introduction. New York: Oxford University Press.
We may not even think about why we are doing what we are doing, but the accompanying feelings compel us. We have looked forward to it for weeks. This was supposed to be a time of rest, but we make ourselves as busy as ever—even more so, but with few complaints other than the hassle of the inevitable competition in dodging others around us doing the same. Not everyone is equally enthused, but everyone takes part in some way.
We dress in clothes reserved or newly purchased for the occasion. We make appointments with friends and family, and if we are lucky, we even have to send regrets or prepare for serious juggling due to an overabundance of invitations. We buy appropriate foods, some available only this time of year, and we plan long days in our kitchens, looking forward to the culinary projects, perhaps following newly discovered recipes, but more often revisiting long-held family traditions.
Some people are not so lucky. They might feel the social void in their lives even more in these periods. It might bring focus to past losses, times that felt happier, especially linked to such occasions. Others might huddle alone at the fringes of their social world, lacking a family, sufficient wealth or even home. But they too might absorb some of the additionally warmed air and light generated to overcome the cold and darkness. They might also be more readily recognized as a person in the generosity of the season. More likely to receive a helping hand or a greeting, when otherwise they are invisible.
As I write this I am surrounded by cut and decorated trees that at any other time of year would be incongruous in this indoor space, lit in a carefree wealth of colors, decorated with dangling bulbs that reflect the light further, and by strings of false gold and silver that complete the opulence. The mall is busy with shoppers, the café buzzing with those taking a break from shopping or meeting with friends in this convenient social place, the market. The Polish skies are a thick grey, making it difficult to say what time of day it is, only that it is a new day straining to show itself for a few hours. It is the day after Christmas in fact, but the festive atmosphere continues.
 |
| Christmas in Amman, Jordan Photo by Patrick Parrish |
Some holidays are ”natural,” emerging from the rhythmic flow of life. In this case, it is the darkness and natural retreat of the northern hemisphere winter. Others are “artificial,” designated to celebrate historic events, like national independence or other historic social events. Secular holidays like these are welcome, but not as natural or compelling. They are just dates on the calendar--excuses for a long weekend. The ones with deep roots, the “holy days,” motivated by timeless myths and natural events, seem to emerge inevitably from their times of year.
Holidays are rituals that for most of us have nearly lost their original meanings. Or perhaps these meanings are superfluous anyway, accumulated through the years to further the rituals that predate their surface meanings. There may be evolutionary motives underlying some holidays.
The study of human rituals, like those associated with holiday celebrations, emerged surprisingly from the study of animal behaviors (Stephenson, 2015). When 19th century ethologists recognized animal behaviours that reminded them of stylized rituals—postures or “dances” conducted for communication or community-definition rather than instrumental ends, the connection to human behavior was unavoidable. Ritual was the only concept that seemed to fit to certain complex courtship behaviours or displays of power. Since this time, the definition of “ethology” has expanded to include the biological study of human behaviour, and sociologists, anthropologists and related scholars have further studied with new perspective the numerous formalized patterns of behavior used throughout human communities and passed down through generations. These behaviours, many of which are likely biologically as well as culturally based, have also been offered as one possible origin of the arts. It is assumed that rituals, being simpler and requiring fewer resources, preceded the making of the artefacts that we currently think of as Art (Dissanayake, 1995).
Art making and appreciation as a form of ritual is an appropriate attribution. The relation of ritual to the arts and aesthetic experiences are their assertiveness, their formality, and the value-added meaning provided. Rituals are a way of engaging in the world partially on its terms (the situation calling for celebration) and partially on our own terms (our choices of ritual acts, either individually or communally chosen). They involve anticipation, preparation, and attention at many levels, not just visual appreciation, but also physical and social action--agency, not passive reception. Most obviously, rituals have a pattern that plays out, with a beginning, middle and end, sometimes more directly enacting a sort of story, sometimes just following through on an expected and carefully executed sequence of actions whose meaning is secondary to the care of execution and need for culmination. In some cultures, rituals are included in the list of traditional arts, such as the Japanese Tea Ceremony. Most martial arts have rituals associated with them as well, ones intended to show respect and humility, and not displays of power. Many artists have their own personal rituals used to guide them in making art (Currey, 2013). Several forms of traditional sandpainting, most famously that of Tibetan monks, are more ritual than what we think of as works of Art, even though a product is at least temporarily produced. Tibetan sandpaintings, however, are destroyed upon completion, the ritual having achieved its purpose, an enactment that symbolizes impermanence. While the process of art making can be ritual, this does not make all ritual Art.
Holiday Rituals
Holidays, as their name implies, are often connected to religious practices, since the coming seasons themselves are beyond our ability to affect and in the hands of fate or gods. But the associated rituals are a way of attempting human influence. These rituals can be quite serious and far from passive entertainment, meeting one of Dewey’s (1934) criteria for art, and perhaps even meeting the criteria for “great art” (Hildebrand, 2015), given their timelessness and transferability across locations and cultures. Yet rituals, while definitely aesthetic, are not quite the same as Art, which involves agency and/or contingency, and not predictability. But this statement leaves a nagging doubt I will come back to later.
Winter Solstice (e.g., Saturnalia, Christmas, Yule, Hanukkah, Saint-Sylvestre, New Year’s Eve and Day)
Winter is difficult, as anyone living above or below of about 35 degrees North or South latitude knows fully well. In the depths of 21 December, when the sun is at its nadir of influence (in the north), despair is understandable. Cold temperatures and snow that force one indoors can lead to claustrophobic feelings, even “cabin fever.” Low levels of sunlight, exasperated by cloudy weather, is known to cause the mild depression known as “seasonally affective disorder.” But human rituals are perhaps at their strongest during these times in response. Many important holy days occur, times to remind ourselves of the gifts of deities (sometimes associated with their births or deaths) and promoting a hopefulness toward the future. In the darkest days, we gather to share communal feelings and good will, personal gifts to those closest to us and family feasts. We light up the dark skies with decorative baubles, and make more use of candles. We use more positive greetings, which can be as simple and generic as “Happy Holidays” or “Bonnes Fetes,” or more specific, depending on our degree of religious faith. Most notably, we spend money, accounting for the phrase “Black Friday” or the day after American Thanksgiving, as the day retailers become profitable for the year (or “in the black” ink in their accounting ledgers). We make the most of what we have, and some people even go into debt in over-generosity in expectation of a wealthy year to come. Winter holidays bring symbols of prosperity within what might otherwise feel like hopelessness.
 |
| New Year's Eve in Geneva, Switzerland Photo by Patrick Parrish |
In Spring hope is renewed. The greening of spring and the possibility inherent in the planting of new crops bring thoughts of rebirth. Spring is associated with fertility rituals, preparing for the prosperity in the growth seasons of Spring and Summer (although more birthdays actually occur in September). In Christian societies it is the time of Easter, and among Jewish, it is the time of Passover, celebrating the Exodus of the Children of Israel, and the forming of a new nation.
Spring is a time of processions and sanctity, even more than the Winter holidays, because it is the symbol of the proof of God’s status. It is also a time of fasting, perhaps linked to the extinguished stores of winter food, before the new crops are available. The Spring holidays extend into May, when Maypole rituals rather conspicuously celebrate fertility with the phallic symbol, a practice captured in one of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s most famous stories in his collection of Twice-Told Tales. The practice of coloring and sharing Easter eggs also likely originated as a fertility symbol, but also has gained Christian connotations.
 |
| Easter in Mallorca Photo by Patrick Parrish |
Summer Solstice (Midsummer's Day)
Summer is a time of abundance--food, sun, drink, and the resultant energy. Midsummer festivals are rituals of music, dancing, and food--along with general abandon.
 |
The Flaming Lips at Vida Festival Photo by Maja Kuna-Parrish
|
While sports are carried out year round thanks to indoor venues, they flourish during the summer--amateur and professional alike. Sports can be a significant component of rituals, and an individual sport contains many specific rituals, from a coin flip, choice of attire, and the entry to the game. Penalties are imposed for violating ritual behavior. The Olympics are originally an event held near the summer solstice, and in fact a highly ritualized tribute to Zeus. Yet anthropologists generally do not consider sports to be rituals in themselves due to the randomness inherent in its play and outcomes.
Autumn Equinox (Rosh ha-Shanah, Yom Kippur, Thanksgiving, Halloween, Dia de los Muertos, All Saints' Day)
If Summer holidays are about exuberance, Autumn holidays make a strong contrast with their subdued and internal focused. They are more meditative. These are the most of holy of Jewish holidays, times of introspection and repentance. But this is also the time of the final harvest, and a time of reflection before the days of darkness and limited resources ahead. Harvest festivals, like Thanksgiving, offer thanks for all that has been made available during the year.
Autumn holidays are also reflective the coming darkness with their focus on death and honoring ancestors, as with All Saints Day. This time of year was considered by Celtic peoples to blur the boundaries between the living and the dead. Halloween is an outcome of this focus, with its celebration of spirits and other dark side manifestations, intended to ward off the most evil spirits, but welcome those that might help predict the future given their knowledge of the other side. Halloween, which began as the Celtic Samhain, is marked by bonfires as offerings to the spirits, and by decorations and costumes that recall the dead.
Art and Ritual
I have warned against leaping to the conclusion that rituals are a form of Art, even though this is a tempting idea, especially given the grandeur of Easter processions, color of Buddhist monasteries and eloquence of Japanese Tea Ceremonies. Several times in this blog, I have also suggested that questions that try to define what is and is not Art are relatively useless, because one can almost always find counterexamples. If we ask instead, “What experiences have the potential to be aesthetic?,” the answers are less difficult to challenge, and in this case, ritual fits well the criteria offered.
 |
| Buddhist Temple Photo by Maja Kuna |
But as Stephenson (2015) goes on to show, others argue that simple actions, even repetitive, scripted actions, even spoken or chanted words, can have “the potential and power to impact one’s intentions, emotions, feelings, and beliefs.” Ritual has a performance aspect not unlike theatre and dance, and does leave room for interpretation, at least internally, and certainly leaves room for developing new attitudes or states of mind over time. In fact, it is not working if one is just “going through the motions.” This is one of the primary reasons for conducting rituals, to shape our lives and ourselves.
Holiday celebrations are special forms of rituals in that they are widely and simultaneously practiced. They arise from the pervasive ambiance created by a broader community, by seasonal characteristics, and by our biological nature responding to these.
References
Dewey, John (1934/1989) Art as Experience. In Jo Ann Boydston (ed.), The Collected Works of John Dewey, 1882-1953, Volume 10. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.
Dissanayake, Ellen (1995) Homo aestheticus. Seattle: University of Washington Press.
Hildebrand, David (2015) Art is not entertainment: John Dewey’s Pragmatist defense of an aesthetic distinction, Southwest Philosophy Review, (31/1), January 2015, pp. 225 - 234, DOI: 10.5840/swphilreview201531123.
Stephenson, Barry (2015) Ritual: A very short introduction. New York: Oxford University Press.
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