Worldbuilding 201: Holidays
Greetings and Celebrations! It starts with an S sound, so sue me! Actually don’t, go sue Anne! It is Christmas Eve, and many holidays are celebrated now, so let’s do a post on how holidays work! Roll the intro! ...Shit I don’t have one–GO!
Holiday is what?
So, what is a holiday? Everyone knows, right? Well, yes… and no. They are easy to point at, and most people have a good sense of them, but that's not what we do here on Stellima Blog! We define things!
A holiday is a day where a significant portion of people of a specific culture disrupt their day-to-day life in order to celebrate something.
We all know that when a holiday comes around, it is special stuff happening: our weekly routine is disrupted, sometimes even days in advance! But I feel the important aspect is that within a culture, a significant portion participates in it one way or another. If it is a small group within a culture, it is just a thing for them and not a holiday. And I said cultures specifically so that if a country has, for example, a Jewish minority, it doesn’t make Hanukkah any less of a holiday, because it is a holiday to their culture. The culture, not the state, makes it a holiday.
Holiday purposes
Work 8-5, 5 days a week, 52 weeks a year. That gets monotonous real fast, and you are privileged! In the old days, it was 12 hours a day, 6 days a week! And before that, it was essentially work every day just to stay alive! And if that was all there was, it would be an incredibly boring existence. So one crucial part of the holiday's purpose is just to make people feel better by celebrating and making it a huge social event where everyone can enjoy each other together.
Another purpose is to keep track of the year. By having certain holidays at specific times, it gives a reference frame for when important events have to be done. Such as when to plant, when to start preparing for the summer, when to harvest, when to go out and look for things in the forest, etc.
A third purpose is to commemorate important events in history in order to create a sense of unity for a people with a collective history. It helps get to know people if, despite your cultural differences, you still celebrate the same holiday and open up for getting to know each other and your differences in celebration!
Holiday types
Holidays can broadly be categorised into 4 categories: religious, national, cultural, and seasonal. Religious holidays are, well, holidays that relate to religious practices! These can range from celebrating specific gods in a polytheistic religion to various saints to specific events like crusades, the birth of specific people of the religion, and so on. The exact nature depends on the exact theology of the religion. A well known one in Christianity is Easter.
National holidays are specific to a nation. They generally celebrate when the nation came to be, specific people that have done great things for the country, or specific wars. There are other alternatives one can do, but the thing is, it is specific to a nation even if it is culturally close to another.
Cultural holidays are holidays that fit within an entire culture that go beyond national borders. They are generally not super specific to a person or such but may be about a specific event or have come about out of just an interest in taking a break. An example of this, which intersects with the next paragraph, is Midsummer in the Nordic countries. We Nordics all celebrate it, and it is part of the Nordic culture, not Nordic nationalities.
Lastly, we have what I call “Seasonal holidays”, which are holidays to mark specific things about nature in order to help keep track of when to do things as I described above. The most common example of this is, in fact, Christmas. It was originally all about celebrating winter solstice to have fun in the dark times in the more northern regions. I will go into how holidays can be changed in a bit.
Of course, all 4 of these can intermix with each other, and it is rare a holiday if it is only one thing when you look through everything in its history.
Holiday mutations
Like life and languages, holidays mutate and change. Why is that? Well, the same reason languages do! Language acquisition is an imperfect process because it is a brand new brain with each person that has to form its understanding of what words mean and how grammar works. And holidays are no different. Each brain has to form its understanding of the holiday, and with it, the transfer from one generation to another will be imperfect. Some slight errors and changes come in regardless. And over time, these can accumulate to the point where it is unrecognisable to the original people’s centuries ago.
On top of that, we have when cultures change due to environmental changes. Today’s Earth is vastly different from Earth 100 years ago. The environment in which the holidays and cultures exist is radically different, and the young brains form their image of the holiday in the context in which they live. When the context shifts this drastically, the meaning and parts of the holiday will shift as well.
Adding yet another element is when it is being intentionally changed! I said Christmas is a seasonal holiday based on the winter solstice, and it is. This can be seen in Nordic languages where the word for Christmas is still the same one used in ancient times, Jul in 🇸🇪, and has nothing to do with Christ. But the Catholic church wanted to convert us (and all of Europe), so instead of trying to stomp out our holidays, they said they celebrate it as well, just that it is Christ's birthday! Despite that, the most likely time for Christ’s birth, if he existed, was around April to May according to biblical scholars.
This ties back to what I said earlier that sharing a holiday to celebrate binds people closer and makes it easier to interact, and if you can fabricate it and even spread it, assimilation of other cultures becomes far easier. Anne, do we have on the idea list about assimilation and integration of people? If not, add it! (Anne: That’s bound to be a good one! Stay tuned everyone!) Anyway, this is why holidays change for unintentional and intentional reasons.
Holiday doings
It is holiday time! What do we do? There is lots to do, as I discussed in my post on food–read it! Food is a culturally important phenomenon, so is it surprising that literally every holiday has some specific food and dishes associated with it? No. Like Thanksgiving is turkey, Christmas is ham in civilised countries (I’m joking I’m joking! Don’t kill me!), in 🇸🇪 we have schnaps for Christmas, too, and a drink called “julmust”, a Christmas must… which is, well, just go here. So a lot of things done for the holiday are preparations of food: buying, preparing, etc. You can actually make a holiday a bit more interesting, in my eyes, by having dishes that take DAYS to make instead of just hours. You really have to plan ahead then!
What more do you do? Well, after food, there is nothing universal in a holiday. You can do gifts, you can be very specific in the types of gifts, you can dance, you can sing, you can have treasure hunts, egg hunts, the options are quite literally endless here. An example a lot of my readers will not be familiar with is Midsummer here. You have the food (which I hate; surprised that the autist hates the food? 😛): herring with boiled potato, some other stuff, and of course, LOADS of alcohol! And then we have the Midsummer pole where people sing and dance around before the food consumption begins. Check out this video, it’s hilarious and accurate:
Holiday doings can range from very silly to very logical and back to silly because the logical part is lost to time. So one can be very creative in creating a holiday. One important thing is that a lot of holidays, even religious ones, are about what you do and the celebrations more than the actual thing that sparked it. It is a social event, and while all acknowledge what it is for, it is the communal doing that people focus on at the moment.
Holiday making
We know the who, the what, the why, and the how, but what about holidays for our new cultures? Especially alien ones?
Step 1: Holiday source
Where does it come from? Is it religious, national, cultural, or seasonal? While you do not need to map out the entire history of how brains have changed the holiday, knowing the source will influence how it is celebrated, and thus it is a good thing to start with.
Step 2: Holiday time
When is it? This is important because it will affect what food is available and thus what will become the food associated with it.
Step 3: Holiday FOOD
Decide some typical pieces of food that you want it to have along with drinks. I would say a handful of food items and 2 to 3 types of drinks. You want some stuff to be associated with it, but not so much that it’s overwhelming. Though you can go against it sometimes; Divinum knows the Swedish Christmas tables! 🙄 Again, read my blogpost on food for ideas.
Step 4: Holiday traditions
Knowing the source and what sparked it, think of things they would do back in the day that is logical given the time and place, then sprinkle in some random fun stuff–people want to be entertained! Now pick a few of those and leave them unchanged. Some things are really resilient to change. The rest you can change to fit more modern times. Typical things to pick from are:
Songs
Music
Dances
Decorations
Clothes
Actions
A fun side note, in 🇸🇪 we have lots of Christmas lights in the windows so others can see from outside. This comes from back in the day when winters could be really deadly, so lights were in the window in case someone was in need of warmth at night and could find people! Today, we just think it is purty.
Step 5: Holiday completion
Smash all these steps together, and you got yourself a holiday! But you have to remember that no matter what you have in step 1, people will always focus on the current way of celebrating and the community it creates. Do not have characters or people too focused on the source; that is a pit a lot of writers fall into. In reality, people want to be social and have a good time, and a holiday is ultimately always that: a social good time to refresh the soul.
Holiday in stories
So, how do you include it in a story? Well, I am too lazy to write this, and I have my dear sister, sooo… Over to you, Anne!
(Anne:) Thanks, Vivian! Holidays can be fun to incorporate into the story. Who doesn’t like having characters participate in age-old rituals and glower as a war hero who killed their family is celebrated? These events can form fascinating glimpses into the various aspects that Vivian has described such as the religious, cultural, national, and even seasonal elements of a society.
When doing a holiday directly, pay attention to the little details! Not everything has to be in the action (although that’s a great place to display the important aspects). You can also have background details. A character in a specific costume in the far background referenced in a single sentence or part of a sentence. Or even just a word can create an image, such as a member of the elite in cotton clothing in a society where silk is the standard for that class of people.
But just like a single word when your characters are directly involved in a holiday can do wonders, so too can a reference in other settings. For example, have characters meet up and reference the holiday, like “two moons after Midsummer” or “the night after Hladoran” for a more fantasy example.
You can also incorporate holidays into common sayings or even swears in your setting as another subtle way of bringing them in. Basically, even if you don’t want to set your story on a holiday or directly involve one, it’s still good to reference them.
And Anne out!
Summa Summarum
(Vivian:) Phew! That took ages to read, she writes so much! 😜 Well, we are at the end of this post on Christmas Eve! In Nordic countries, we celebrate on the eve, not the day of, so I will be celebrating Christmas today. Through this post, I hope you’ve learned more about what a holiday is, how to make one, and have gotten food for thought! And I hope during these times you will get a lot of good food for your stomach to consume, too!
As a classical segment on TV in 🇸🇪 said every year with me growing up to conclude the Christmas show:
From us all to you all, a really Merry Christmas.
Happy holidays everyone!
(Anne:) Warm wishes and love in this holiday season!
Want to dive into a discussion about Stellima or the art of writing on Discord? We’d love to have you! And if you have any topics you struggle with or that you would like to suggest for a future blogpost, we’re open to suggestions!
Interested in supporting our work? Join our Patreon and become a part of Stellima as a citizen of Mjatreonn! Or would you like to give us some caffeine to fuel our writing? Consider buying us a coffee at Ko-fi! Every contribution inspires our creativity and keeps us going. Thank you for your support!
Copyright ©️ 2023 Vivian Sayan. Original ideas belong to the respective authors. Generic concepts such as how to classify holiday traditions are copyrighted under Creative Commons with attribution, and any derivatives must also be Creative Commons. However, specific language or exact phrasing is individually copyrighted by the respective authors. Contact them for information on usage and questions if uncertain what falls under Creative Commons. We’re almost always happy to give permission. Please contact the authors through this website’s contact page.
We at Stellima value human creativity but are exploring ways AI can be ethically used. Please read our policy on AI and know that every word in the blog is written and edited by humans or aliens.
