Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    American Celebration
    American Celebration
    American Celebration
    Ebook117 pages1 hour

    American Celebration

    By Erin Lale

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Thoroughly researched, American Celebration analyzes and discusses the various components of holidays, festivals, and celebrations. Why do brides wear white? Why do new fathers pass out cigars? These, and many more questions are answered in depth and detail. Learn how our modern holidays evolved from their predecessors, and why they were originally celebrated. Learn the origins of many common holidays and their symbols.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSpero Publishing
    Release dateJan 22, 2014
    ISBN9781311315052
    American Celebration

    Read more from Erin Lale

    Related to American Celebration

    Related ebooks

    Social Science For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      I’m The Aunty Now!

      Jan 23, 2024

      I’m The Aunty Now!
      5 min read

    • Article

      Convert Nation

      Aug 12, 2017

      Convert Nation
      4 min read

    • Article

      Celebrations

      Aug 7, 2023

      Celebrations
      4 min read

    • Article

      A Note From The Editor

      Aug 15, 2023

      One of my best girlfriends has a second home in Florida, and for the last few years, I’ve had the privilege of spending a long weekend with her and a handful of other ladies who make up my village. These days away are not just a good time to disconne

      1 min read

    • Article

      The Light In The Dark

      Nov 24, 2023

      The Light In The Dark
      3 min read

    • Article

      Baby Be Mine

      Feb 11, 2024

      Baby Be Mine
      8 min read

    • Article

      The Little Rituals We Love

      Nov 23, 2021

      The Little Rituals We Love
      4 min read

    • Article

      Baby Be Mine

      Feb 11, 2024

      Baby Be Mine
      8 min read

    • Article

      Something To Celebrate

      Dec 14, 2020

      There’s an irony to writing a piece on “Dezember”, the sea-celebrate-sun holiday season, and what this means to South Africans. I’d have to live at the bottom of a well to be unaware of the frenzied energy that seizes the nation every year around mid

      2 min read

    • Article

      Jen Hatmaker

      Aug 19, 2017

      Jen Hatmaker
      3 min read

    • Article

      What Is The Main Characteristic Of American Buddhism?

      May 18, 2021

      To me, American Buddhism is a philosophy, not a religion. The essential elements are mindfulness, gratitude, and compassion. American Buddhism is about cultivating these qualities. —Nate Amendola, Hingham, Massachusetts Our Buddhism is kind of soft,

      2 min read

    • Article

      Begin Again

      Dec 22, 2023

      Begin Again
      4 min read

    • Article

      A Holly Jolly Eid

      Jan 7, 2016

      A Holly Jolly Eid
      4 min read

    • Article

      Why This Year Is DIFFERENT

      Nov 18, 2019

      Why This Year Is DIFFERENT
      3 min read

    • Article

      Extreme Beliefs

      Feb 8, 2024

      Extreme Beliefs
      4 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for American Celebration

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      American Celebration - Erin Lale

      American Celebration

      By Erin Lale

      Spero Publishing

      Madison, WI

      Smashwords Edition

      Copyright 2014 Spero Publishing

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      Spero Publishing maintains a website at https://sites.google.com/site/speropublishing/. Upcoming products, news, and book reviews may be found there.

      Contact the owner through the Contact Us form at: https://sites.google.com/site/speropublishing/about-us/contact-us

      -or-

      Alan Leddon

      Spero Publishing

      PO Box 8747

      Madison, WI

      Contents:

      Introduction

      Holidays

      Traditions

      Symbols and Beings

      Toasting

      Gifts

      Folk Magic

      Conclusion

      Introduction

      In December 2010, I was on the phone with my mother and brother. My mom, an atheist, my brother, a Zen Buddhist, and I, an Ásatruar, were all wishing each other a Merry Christmas. I realized how ironic that was, laughed, and corrected my blessing to Merry Yule, but it made me think: why had my family always celebrated Christmas? My late father had not been a Christian either, he had been a Native American Believer, and I still followed the traditions he taught me in addition to Ásatru.

      When my brother and I were children, my family had always had a Christmas tree, which we decorated and put presents under, and we had put our stockings on the fireplace for Santa Claus to fill, and we had sung carols around the piano and had a formal dinner and special seasonal foods, and dressed in red, sometimes even with Santa hats, and exchanged gifts with our friends and relatives; in short, we had done everything related to Christmas except worship Christ.

      Why, I wondered? The answer was simple and automatic: because we’re Americans. Because this is part of American folk tradition, and everything in that list of Christmas traditions was at least as heathen as it was Christian. What our wider society terms secular culture is a survival of a pagan age, and is as much a part of our national consciousness as English common law, also a survival from heathen times.

      One of the things that had drawn me to heathen and pagan ways when I was looking for a religion in my teen and college years had been the community seasonal celebrations with all their attendant traditions, the attitudes, morals, symbols, crafts, music, foods, and so forth, in other words, the folkways, of traditional America. I realized that what I loved most about these traditions was the way it drew communities and families together despite differences in religion, race, politics, social class, and all the other ways we divide ourselves in modern society. I realized, further, that American folk tradition is as legitimate a folkway as any other folkway. And that it is my folkway. And this is my folk. I am American.

      I want to celebrate holidays with the people who are part of my life: my family and close friends and neighbors and community, even if they are not heathens. As Americans, we already have a framework for celebrating together despite religious differences; we just have not named and formalized it. So I have set out to name, formalize, and record our folkway, American Celebration.

      American Celebration is a way of making the holidays truly holy-days when celebrating with friends and family of different faiths. It’s also the collection of symbols, aspirations, and values at the core of our beings as Americans.

      The main reason I wrote this book is to help myself and others practice American Celebration consciously, as a folk tradition with the ability to unite us while keeping our own sacred traditions. Secondly, as a heathen scholar who has spent large portions of my life trying to reconstruct what the ancient folkways of preliterate people were like, I’d like to give a firsthand report of our current folkway to future scholars. Thirdly, I’d like to answer the question a foreign friend asked me at a political get-together: Why is it that wherever I go in America, there is always so much flag-waving? I think the answer is that what unites us as a people is our symbols and traditions. Citizens of the United States are not united by a common nationality; we are not all the same ethnicity, race, religion, etc. We are not a nation in the same way that, for example, the Cherokee Nation is. What we have in common, what makes us a folk, is our folkway: our American Celebration.

      In writing this book, I originally set out to make a happy, smiley book about holiday fun, but as I delved deeper into the meanings of things and the way our culture works, I inevitably turned a political lens on some of what I discovered. Sometimes I sat down at the computer to write a simple, neutral account of what we Americans do on a specific topic and my fingers started going and pretty soon I had a political rant, and no real clue how it got there, sort of like automatic writing. I considered cutting all that out because it wasn’t what I intended to write, but I decided that the political observations belong there because there they were, so I left them in. I hope they enhance peoples’ understanding of American customs rather than ruining the festive mood of the book. It’s taken me 3 years from the time I started writing this to the time I decided to stop and publish it. Theoretically I could go on writing it forever, since there is so much to write about. At some point one must say, Enough research and writing; let’s share this. I hope readers will find this book both enjoyable and useful.

      Chapter 1: Holidays

      If you were raised in an American community, you already are familiar with all the holidays of American Celebration, because they are the customs of our country. However, you may regard the origins of some of these holidays with queasiness, or be uncomfortable at family or community gatherings because of religious differences, and may simply hope to understand better how celebrating in the American folkway connects with the cycles of nature, the community, the community’s values, and the larger forces that make the world what it is. Making the holidays truly holy-days requires a change in perspective and an attitude of respect and holiness. To be whole with one’s community, family, neighbors, and friends is a holy state.

      This chapter will be especially helpful to those who were not raised celebrating the holidays of the American calendar year. Whether that is because you did not live in America in your youth or because you were raised in a religion that did not celebrate holidays, this book will answer your questions about American customs.

      However, even if you know how to do these community and family rites, examining the role they play in our lives can make ritual more meaningful, and integrating our community lives with our deepest spiritual selves makes us whole. This chapter is intended to make celebrating with friends and family of different faiths a comfortable, convivial experience while allowing us the freedom to be ourselves.

      New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day – December 31 / January 1

      On New Year’s Eve, Americans stay up until midnight when the day officially changes to the next day, and therefore the year also officially changes to the next year. The tradition is to gather with friends and one’s community, toast with champagne, and mark the moment of the New Year by kissing. There is a tradition that the old year is represented by an old man in tatters and the new year is represented by a newborn baby.

      The custom of New Year’s Resolutions is a custom of making a promise to change oneself in some way. Such changes usually involve some sort of social

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1