Your Humble Blogger is associated once more with an institution of higher learning, which makes the Hallowe’en experience even more odd than it had been for a while. Hallowe’en is an odd combination of two holidays, at least these days. It’s a family holiday, mostly about the younger children, four to nine or so, who like to dress up, go out after dark (perhaps the first time in the autumn that they get to go out walking after dark, since darkness falls a tad earlier in October), get candy, give out candy, and eat candy. And, of course, it’s for the parents who like to dress their children up, see the other children in their costumes, get candy, give out candy and eat candy. A family holiday.
It’s also, of course, a hipster holiday, a holiday of license and licentiousness, a chance to wear revealing clothes and drink heavily and act out. A Castro Street holiday, although no longer actually on Castro Street. A holiday of misbehavior and immoderation. I overheard a young fellow say that his costume for the party would be a drunk guy, and that the clever part was that he wouldn’t be drunk when he got there, but would get more and more drunk over the course of the night, just like a drunk guy at a party would, and to make it more realistic, he would drink heavily all night. I actually think that’s a clever thing to say, although less clever to actually do, but it points up the aspect of the holiday that is most prominent for childless adults: the party.
They’re not the same holiday. Oh, there are holiday parties for families with children, but it is Not the Same Thing At All. And I suspect that most people come into close contact with either one version or the other, but not both.
New Year’s Eve is a little bit like that, although mostly it’s either a matter for a drunken party or it’s a very mild celebration; the First Night activities haven’t really changed that. St. Patrick’s Day, as well, is either celebrated or not celebrated, there really isn’t a second non-alcoholic set of traditions. I suppose that there are two distinct sets of Christmas traditions, one for Catholic and Episcopalian churchgoers, involving Midnight Mass and so on, and one for those Christians who stay at home, but that doesn’t strike me as the same thing; the Christians who go to church also do family meal and exchange gifts, for the most part, and the Christians who don’t go to church are (as far as I understand, which is dim indeed) celebrating a subset of the same tradition. I suppose there are people who observe Mardi Gras in some manner that is totally different from Mardi Gras, but I’ve never come across it. Are there other holidays with two such disparate modes of observance?
Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.
Well, I, for one, celebrated both varieties of Halloween. The drunken revel contained children, for some of us have them, but it wasn’t about children. There was (mild) alcohol poisoning, drinks with suggestive names were poured, underwear was shifted for better tattoo viewing, people ended up passed out on sofas and other flat surfaces, and ribs were broken (poor guy – a total accident involving a fall, not a fight) in the service of fun.
Tonight, the children were goblins and troublemakers (in a cute way), and it was very gratifying.
But I expect that you are correct that this is the exception to general experience.
I’d like to expound academically on the roots of Halloween in the dim recesses of history, when Samhain was celebrated to cleanse the soul at the time of the opening of the doors to the halls of the dead, but I can’t. Sure would be nice if I could, though. Yup.
(Dude, what the hell – my helpful in-browser spell-checker is telling me I misspelled Samhain, but not that I misspelled yup. Yup isn’t even a WORD, Firefox! Jeez!)
Oh, and the other thing I wanted to touch on was the secular celebration of Christmas, where gifts are exchanged and the fatted goose slaughtered in the name of excess, because, well, shit, THOSE folks are doing it, and it’s fun! No Jesus involved, except historically.
Or whatever. I can’t explain it, I just go along for the ride and write Christmas songs like this one, for performance in my basement, when I’m all alone and no one can tell me to turn that crap down. ‘Cause, you know, it’s acoustic.
It’s a holiday night on the north pole
The elves are slightly hungover
Rudolph has just drained the punch bowl
And Legolas has just come over
(voiceover can be heard over the bridge)
“Shut the damn nose off, Rudolph! SHUT IT OFF!”
*BAM*
“OOF!”
CHORUS
Fa la la la la (Deck the reindeer)
Fa la la (With frosty holly)
Fa la la la la (Or just your fist, dear)
Fa la la (He’s too effin’ jolly)
peace
Matt
Whoa. Your posts have title blocks only visible from the front page now, or maybe they always did, but i don’t think so. In the feed reader entry for Matt’s comment, i saw:
In Which Your Humble Blogger observes a duality, although not a duality of self. Shouldn’t there be an emoticon for duality of self?
So, i thought, we’ll, of course there’s an emoticon for duality of self, it’s presumably :>| (substitute your own nose(s)) or something like that. So, like a responsible blog reader, i went off and quality-tested my new emoticon in a terminal window, then came back and clicked on your post so i could comment to it.
…at which point i discovered that this tag line does not seem to appear in your post itself, only on the front blog page, so your other readers may have no idea what i’m talking about.
Well, anyway, have an emoticon.
Also, i can’t spell anything at all, and repeatedly previewing the post appears to have broken my html. I’ll resign effective tomorrow, but meanwhile try this instead: :>|<:
Oh, Matt, don’t be silly! “Yup” is the Russian word for, y’know, having carnal knowledge ‘n whatnot. I don’t remember, but I might very well have said, “Yup!” when viewing the aforementioned tattoo. I’m fairly certain I stuttered out some kind of approving remark about the quality of that tattoo.
St. Patrick’s Day is celebrated by drunkenness, as you note, but celebrated quite differently for politicians by parades, breakfasts, lunches, speeches, and other non-drunken events.
Election Day has a day/night duality similar to the Halloween evening/night duality.
Red Sox Winning the World Series has two very different celebrations, both now with the force of tradition: the young adult celebration which involves drunkenness, destroying cars, and fleeing police in riot gear; and the family celebration which involves going to a parade. These are held at different times, fortunately.