December 10, 2024

Political for the holidays

Over a year ago now, I got in a fight with a billionaire. (I am generally hyperbolic, but I know our conversation was more tense than casual as I was sweating and my co-workers were shaken by the end.) I was working, at the time, for an app which never got off the ground. The app was started by a wealthy woman and funded by the billionaire, an even wealthier man.

The app was intended to make you reach out to friends and family on a more frequent basis, prompting you to remember birthdays and other important days. This meant holidays. My manager and I wrote hundreds of articles on holidays. Each included a brief history of the holiday, when it was celebrated, how it was celebrated, and the proper greeting (if there was one) for the holiday.

The wealthy woman and the billionaire both wanted the app to be “non-political.” They worried it was too political already, focused on empathy and without any content verticals about how homophobia was OK. “What are we going to do about holidays?” I asked.

“Holidays aren’t political,” said the billionaire who complained earlier in the conversation that bad actors were politicizing the town he was attempting to build. I can blame him for thinking building a town isn’t political (John Galt shudders). But I can’t judge him too harshly for thinking holidays are non-political ventures. I once thought the same.

I knew holidays could be used politically before I started working at the failed app. My entire life we have been at war with Christmas. But I didn’t know how many holidays were created for political ends. I didn’t realize the power of celebration for political means.

Christmas, of course, is the ultimate in political and invented holidays. Writers on both sides of the pond (Charles Dickens in the U.K. and Washington Irving in the U.S.) created the Christmas we know. Washington Irving even created a group to promote the holiday—the St. Nicholas Society. Dickens, in particular, promoted Christmas to draw attention to the suffering of the poor. Christmas, as represented by his three ghosts, moves a man to be better, kinder, less selfish.

As we enter a new era of Trumpism, I have been brainstorming ways to get around the binary found in American politics. How can we use commonalities to create connection? How can we foster a shared reality?

Holidays are a great way to do this. Washington Irving drew on a fake history of Dutch and English celebration to revive interest in Christmas, which was not widely celebrated at the time. American Halloween was built on All Hallow’s Eve which was built on Samhain. They share a thread, but have distinct meanings and purposes.

Some holidays are created from scratch, although it might be harder to do. Anna Jarvis created Mother’s Day wholesale and Sonora Dodd (raised by a single father) insisted we have Father’s Day to match.

If I were to build a holiday, I’d build it around César Chávez Day (March 31). It is already on the calendar. A labor organizer and Californian, César Chávez co-founded the United Farm Workers and organized successful strikes, most notably the Delano grape strike.

My version of César Chávez Day would be used to honor and celebrate farm workers. It’d be a harvest holiday, an alternative Thanksgiving. It would focus on gratitude for workers, rather than imagined U.S. history. (Bonus: the Catholic hardliners who control so much conservatism can’t really argue against a holiday based around one of the country’s most famous Catholics.) It would remind us of the U.S. history we often ignore, the country’s rich labor history.

Every holiday is political, created, invented, and tweaked. We create the days we celebrate and, in that celebration, we may be able to create a better world.