Some Thoughts on the Winter Holiday Schedule

Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day, everyone! May it be a peaceful, hopeful day of thanks.

As a number of posts on this blog have demonstrated, I think it's important to examine the politics of holidays. With that in mind, to mark Martin Luther King Jr. day today, I want to put forward my thoughts on reworking the holiday schedule of the United States.

First, let me begin by saying that it would make sense to have our major holidays in the summer instead of the winter. Weather conditions in the summer would mean less cancellations and less accidents brought on by winter cold and snow. That said, if we want to continue to have the major holidays in the winter--perhaps, for instance, because they bring some joy to what might be an otherwise dreary time of year, as winter solstice festivals have been doing for ages--then I think we should have New Year's Day take the place of Christmas as the major holiday for gathering with friends and family and giving gifts, and we should have Martin Luther King Jr. Day take the place of Thanksgiving as the major holiday for gathering with friends and family and giving thanks.

First, in terms of the Christmas to New Year's Day switch, New Year's Day would seem to be the more inclusive holiday. Since Christmas is a Christian holiday, emphasizing it marginalizes those people who belong to other religions or who are not religious at all. Now, certainly, we have elements of our culture that have tried to make it more inclusionary, emphasizing Hanukkah for Jewish folks, developing and celebrating Kwanzaa for folks of African heritage, substituting "Merry Christmas" with "Happy Holidays," and more. Yet, this all remains based around ways of accomodating Christmas for non-Christian folks--something that maintains the centrality of Christianity and, thus, marginalizes other religions and religious perspectives. Meanwhile, some Christian folks have fought against these kinds of moves. Every year some Christian folks voice opposition to use of "Happy Holidays" over "Merry Christmas." From another angle, some Christian folks voice concern about the commercialization of Christmas, arguing that by making the holiday a day focused on buying and getting things and emphasizing elements of the holiday like Santa Claus, the things that Christmas should signify get lost. By moving the major holiday from Christmas to New Year's Day, many of these concerns could be alleviated. New Year's Day is not tied so directly to a particular religion like Christmas is, so it is more inclusive of many different groups of people. Additionally, Christians who voice concerns about the secularization and/or commercialization of Christmas can then celebrate it as a holiday particular to their faith without so much of the secular generalization to include everyone else or the emphasis on buying and getting things. Christmas would be something that Christians celebrate in the ways that they see fit, with New Year's Day as the day that we all come together, give each other gifts if we wish, and celebrate our lives and communities. On New Year's Day, we look back at the year that has ended, remembering what has happened, while looking forward to what lies before us in the year ahead. That seems like a sentiment that matches up really well with families, friends, and communities gathering together and with giving and receiving presents--i.e., things that help us remember the past as well as things that we want as we go forward into the future.

Meanwhile, I've discussed the politics of Thanksgiving on this website before. As a summary, Thanksgiving reinforces a version of U. S. history that privileges perspectives and experiences based in white, European, Christian backgrounds, to the exclusion of perspectives and experiences that differ from that, especially those of Native Americans. Indeed, the traditional story of Thanksgiving can easily be read as one of hegemonic assimilation, with one group using "friendship," "community," "peace," and other ideas to sell domination to the group they are working to dominate. Meanwhile, though often understood as specifically situated within the movement for African American Civil Rights Movement, Martin Luther King Jr. Day is much more about the ideas of inclusion that supposedly are the basis for the United States as a nation. While King's messages especially mean a lot to many African American men and women, they have also resonated with many other groups, they have helped inspire many other fights against inequality and injustice, and they are largely recognized as being centered on peacefulness in a way that the characters from the traditional Thanksgiving narrative cannot signify. To me, the cultural meanings of Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement provide a much more sound basis for a day of gathering with friends and family and giving thanks than the cultural meanings of the story of Thanksgiving. Martin Luther King Jr. Day can very easily signify thankfulness for the process of democracy, by which I mean, among other things, recognition that democracy is an ongoing thing; we must keep working to eliminate exclusion and oppression in order to create a society that more fully embodies a democracy. In doing so, we give thanks for those, signified by King but including so many others, who have worked to help us move forward in developing that democracy. By celebrating the process of democracy like that, we're celebrating what our nation as a community is all about. This would seem to me to be a much more appropriate place for a national holiday to give thanks and gather with the meaningful communities in our lives.

Of course, neither of these holiday moves is free of politics. Even with the greater inclusiveness of New Year's Day, the holiday is not entirely inclusive. For instance, not all cultures mark the beginning of the year on January 1. Meanwhile, while King often signifies progress toward civil rights, not all individuals agree with his message, and we might very well examine the politics of the "peace" that he promoted. Among other things, there are important arguments to be heard that suggest that King offered too much of a message based in assimilation to white society and, thus, celebrating a day commemorating him compromises the quest for equality and justice. I think these are important exclusions to note, consider, and work with going forward. Indeed, while making an argument about the ongoing process of democracy, it would seem rather disingenuous of me then to say that my plan alleviates these concerns and that we would not need to continue reconsidering the holidays we have even with the switches I propose. That said, moving the major holidays to New Year's Day and Martin Luther King Jr. Day seems like a step in the right direction.