TLDR: Holidays are cool, but top-down holiday invention/endorsement is usually bad. Commercialization of holidays can be a good thing, when done well. Utopia uses prizes/betting to efficiently allocate guests/hosts.
Prerequisites: Opinions (familiarity with American holidays will also help contextualize)
In my opinion the three best holidays in the USA are Christmas, Halloween, and New Year’s Eve/Day. My favorite is Thanksgiving, but I feel it’s objectively worse. You may have different tastes or favorites — that’s totally fine. The joy of holidays comes not simply from their subject of celebration, but from the personal connection that we feel to them. We each have different childhood memories, different family traditions, different ethnicities and backgrounds, different faiths and spiritualities, and different personalities. It seems only logical that we should like and celebrate different holidays!
Of course, not everyone is so keen to celebrate diversity and make space for each-other’s traditions. The most egregious holiday battles are historical, but the culture wars seem unending, and continue into the present.
After Stalin consolidated his power over the Soviet Union in the 1920s, he and others in the communist regime declared that because the USSR was an atheist country, religious holidays (including Christmas) would be banned. Via Wikipedia:
During the early Soviet period, religious celebrations were discouraged by the official state policy of atheism. Christmas trees were denounced as a bourgeois German import while the holiday itself was debunked as a pagan sun-worshipping ritual with no basis in scientific fact. In 1929, all religious holidays including Christmas were abolished by a decree of the Soviet government. However, in 1935, in a surprising turn of state politics, many Christmas traditions were revived as part of a secular New Year's celebration after Stalin's advisers convinced the leader of the proletarians' need for a break from the hard work in the middle of a long cold winter. The Christmas tree was repurposed as a "New Year's fir tree" (Russian: Новогодняя елка, Novogodnyaya yolka) to be admired by all children throughout the Soviet Union, including republics which historically had not celebrated Christmas due to different religious traditions, such as the Central Asian ones. Other Christmas attributes and traditions, such as gift-giving, Ded Moroz's visits and Christmas decorations, lost their religious significance and became associated with New Year's celebrations, which were secular in nature.
While this heavy-handed cultural butchery eventually came to an end, it was half-successful at its aims. Most Russians today put their winter-holiday emphasis on New Year’s instead of Christmas.
The banning of Christmas is hardly a unique feature of the USSR. In the 1600s Christmas was banned by Puritans in England and parts of the American colonies, replacing it with a day of work and fasting (classic Puritans). The French revolutionaries briefly outlawed it towards the end of the 1700s as part of a general oppression of religion. And let’s not neglect that celebration of Christmas in China was blocked by a combination of cultural and governmental action as recently as 2018.
And even Christmas itself has a similar history to the Russian New Year’s celebration: an ideological scheme meant to replace pagan winter holidays, but which ended up mashed together with them to form something new. At the very least we can trace many Christmas decorations and rituals back to secular winter holidays from various parts of Europe (or to Charles Dickens).
The point is not to decry New Year’s or Christmas — as I said: I like both holidays, mish-mash and all. But I think it’s worth noticing that sometimes a church/government tries to erase or co-opt culture through the top-down restriction/modification/invention of a holiday, and that this is one of the many faces of tyranny.
Against Government Holidays
In the USA we have 11 holidays on which federal government employees such as postal workers get the day off, and which are given special weight by institutions such as banks, schools, and the stock market. Because of these closures, many places (e.g. the UK) call these “bank holidays.” (This, in turn produced a UK holiday called “Late May Bank Holiday” that has got to be the most dystopian name for a holiday ever.)
I very much appreciate giving time off to workers, and it’s efficient in several ways to have consistent days when people are off work. But mandating specific days-off is ultimately a weak form of the tyranny discussed earlier. Christians in America are typically blessed with automatic time off work/school for themselves and their families on Christmas, while muslims (for example) must coordinate and fight their employers/schools to be free on Eid al-Fitr.
A more free and fair system would be to allow each person to choose some number of days (e.g. 12) in advance each year that are special days for them, and let them take those days as paid leave. If you’re thinking “we already do that,” you’d be somewhat right. The UK mandates 28 days of paid leave each year for full-time workers. The USA on the other hand is in a small group of countries (along with India, Sri Lanka, South Korea, and Somalia) that doesn’t mandate any paid leave.
I’m actually not that upset by the absence of laws demanding that employers provide paid leave to employees. It seems sad that some people don’t have the resources to take time off, and stupid for some employers to incentivize their workers to come into work while sick with a contagious disease. But I think the solutions here involve simply giving more resources to the poor and perhaps enforcing local standards to prevent contagion.
I do think, however, that insofar as we’re granting paid leave to people in government, or mandating holiday leave, we should do so in a way that respects their values and traditions, rather than assuming they’re christian patriots who just love celebrating Washington’s birthday.
Fostering Festivities
Speaking of Washington’s birthday, why is it that some holidays are cool while others are super boring? It’s not just because some are artificial products of politics and culture wars, but because they lack some or all of the essential characteristics of an evocative holiday, such as:
Decorations/Costumes
Rituals/Songs/Activities/Traditions
Celebration/Parties/Food
Distinction and temporal distance from other holidays
Note that I use the word “evocative” above rather than “good.” A good holiday is one that has meaning, brings people together, and celebrates virtues and good deeds. October Revolution Day (celebration of the Bolshevik Revolution) is not a good holiday, regardless of how evocative it is/was.
Regardless, we use the list above to see how something like Christmas is so popular. There are distinctive Christmas clothes and decorations with specific colors and styles. There are activities such as opening presents, caroling, going to church, watching certain movies, and so on. There’s a traditional feast, and people try to be around family and close friends for games and activities. There are specific candies and good foods/drinks associated with Christmas. It maintains a distinctive flavor, even in the presence of holidays like New Year’s, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and Solstice.
Contrast with something like Veteran’s day, which blends together with Memorial day, 9/11, and the 4th of July in terms of decorations and theme, lacking much in the way of activities, songs, or traditions.
But the surface-level criticism only goes so far. Yes, some holidays suck because they lack things like decorations, specific sweets, or songs. But why do they lack these things? Why isn’t there a color scheme associated with April Fool’s day, for example?
I think the key is often whether a holiday has an opportunity to profit at its core. That’s right: I think the best holidays are easily commercialized.
Capitalist Christmas
When commercialization of holidays is brought up in most contexts it is heavily derided as a toxic aspect of capitalism. People hate the idea of businesses looking to turn things like Christmas into an opportunity to profit. And it’s almost always Christmas in particular (or occasionally Valentine’s day) that’s under fire.
One of the primary reasons that people don’t like Christmas being commercialized is that the religious aspects of the holiday often conflict with the commercial ones. Going to church, praying, and reading the Bible are hardly things that involve big spending. Decorating a tree, feasting, and especially buying gifts, on the other hand are extremely lucrative. Those who care about the religious ceremony see corporations as pulling people away from Christ.
But I’m not sure that’s what’s happening. I think America (and much of the rest of the world) is secularizing, and abandoning things like churches at a remarkable rate. It is this broad secularization that is driving interest in secular Christmas activities, not vice versa. Nobody is thinking “Huh, every time I buy and exchange gifts with my family I feel a little less like I need to go to church.” Companies see increased demand (or opportunity for it, in the form of changing interest) and help serve the needs of the people.
Which is not to say there’s no manipulation going on. Very likely people spend more money than they would in a world without advertising and marketing. But this largely doesn’t operate through brainwashing, but rather opens up opportunities for people to spend money to advance their true values. Regardless, my point is that this holiday spending is non-competitive with the religious aspects, and usually not corrosive to the spiritual aspect of the holiday.
And having corporate involvement is excellent in many ways. This is a huge part of what makes Halloween fun and easy to celebrate. The presence of cheap, easily acquired costumes surely helps out overburdened parents. Halloween decorations and easily-purchased candy makes it straightforward for businesses to glam up for the season and participate in trick-or-treating. And there’s a positive-feedback-loop where increased enthusiasm for the holiday promotes things like movies and institutional buy-in, which in turn raises awareness and drives enthusiasm.
In short, the best thing about the commercialization of Christmas, Halloween, and more, is that teams of professionals have the opportunity to make it their full-time job to figure out what the most appealing version of that holiday is, and then communicate and share that with others in the form of goods and services. Color schemes, fonts, music, and more come from corporate involvement.
Utopian Holidays
In Utopia, as I see it, holidays are not reified by governments, and there’s a general norm against authorities specifying which holidays are important/real. Instead, people adopt holidays that were important to previous generations, or make up new ones to fit changing times and new communities. Governments/employers/schools provide flexibility to their employees/students to take time off to celebrate life on the days that are meaningful to the individual by letting people choose days off in advance. Workers have enough leverage that they typically get paid time off for at least a couple weeks a year. Some businesses may not do business on certain special days of the year, but only because the individual employees happen to share that day as a day off.
Holidays are commercialized in Utopia, with businesses competing to provide decorations, costumes, foods, and venues for revelers. In addition, institutions called “holiday marketplaces” exist that help people coordinate to have excellent holiday celebrations.
Holiday marketplaces offer memberships that come with discounts on relevant goods at affiliated stores, restaurants, airlines, et cetera. Membership, however, involves telling the marketplace who you’re friends/family are, for the purposes of celebrating the holiday, and nudging them to also become members.
But holiday marketplaces don’t just offer discounts; they serve as social networks to coordinate parties and gatherings. Each year the members of a holiday marketplace indicate whether they’d be interested in going to someone else’s party. If so, the member offers a prize to whoever ends up hosting them, either in the form of a fixed-quantity of credit in the marketplace, or a commitment to reimburse their hosts for some fraction of the total expenses. Guests can also specify restrictions, preferences, and more.
Then, after a window of sign-ups has happened, the marketplace contacts members and checks whether they’d like to host a party this year. Potential hosts then select which guests/prizes they’d like to have. If two potential hosts select the same guest, the holiday marketplace has them make conditional bets with each other. Each host guesses a low-estimate for what the contested-guest would say on a post-party satisfaction survey if they went to their party. Competing hosts then have the opportunity to bet at 1:1 odds that the guest will report a lower satisfaction than that. Then, whichever party has the highest estimated satisfaction wins the RSVP (and thus the prize) of the guest.
After the holiday, all guests are surveyed by the holiday marketplace for their satisfaction. These surveys are used to resolve the bets and provide feedback to hosts. Post-survey statistics are associated with hosts that have had more than a dozen guests come to their parties, as a way of establishing a reputation.
To make things concrete and see how it might work, let’s imagine a holiday marketplace for New Year’s Eve. Our New Year’s marketplace might offer something like 5% off decorations, fireworks, et cetera, but is also affiliated with grocery stores, perhaps with a lower/no discount. Alice, Bob, Carol, and Dave all sign up as members, and mark each other as belonging to a community that might want to celebrate together.
This year Alice, Bob, and Dave say they might want to be guests at a New Year’s Eve party. Alice and Bob are a unit and require that the host invite both of them; they offer to pay 200%/N of the budget, where N is the number of people at the party. Dave offers to pay $80, and says that he wants to try and be a host if nobody invites him. Carol wants to be a host but not a guest, and invites Alice, Bob, and Dave. Since Dave was invited, he doesn’t end up competing with Carol for guests. Thus Carol the party is happening at Carol’s house this year.
Carol then spends $256 (after discounts) on food and decorations through the marketplace. $80 is paid by Dave and $128 is paid by Alice and Bob, since the party has 4 people. This leaves $48 for Carol to cover. The shops are happy because of how much was spent. The marketplace is happy because they keep a small cut of the expenses. Alice, Bob, and Dave are happy because they got to attend a cool party without having to spend effort coordinating and splitting the bill. Carol is happy because she was able to have her friends over for an awesome party without having to spend very much of her own money or do the socially awkward thing of asking her friends to chip in.
They sing songs, eat together, set off fireworks, and watch the celebrations far away. Overall their New Year’s party is happy and bright.
