Happy Independence Day everyone! In honor of the holiday (and due to unforeseen time-vacuums), I postponed my Thursday post for today. What to talk about? Holidays, of course!
In any fantasy or sci-fi world (or country, or time-frame, etc. etc.), there's a good chance you'll be starting from the bottom up. At the very least, you'll likely not be playing with a world with a Christian/Jewish/Muslim God as the predominant deity, with Christmas in winter, Easter in Spring, Halloween in Fall, and a secular celebration of your nation's birth on July 4th. Or maybe you are. Whatever!
Still, in fiction, carbon copies of these (albeit usually carefully photoshopped) are strangely widespread in worlds that are meant to share absolutely nothing with ours. Even if your religions (and, unless well-explained (actual God-to-human communication, public burnings of nonbelievers, hive-minds, XYZ, ABC...) there should be at least a handful of religions scattered around your world. The less centralized, the more there are apt to be--in a tribal society, there might be a different religion or sect to every village, while on a planet that has completely globalized, there may be one or two majority sects with a hundred or so lesser-known religions scattered across the globe) purposefully share marked similarities with real-world counterparts, there should be major differences in the holidays so that they more closely fit the layout of your world.
Your secular holidays, meanwhile.... Honestly, if your secular holidays in a different world closely resembled modern-day America's (or whatever country you live in/take inspiration from), you might want to ask yourself why. You may find yourself answering, "convenience" and realize that some changes are necessary.
Here are some questions to help you build your holidays. First, Religious:
1. What are the major religions in your world? What is your viewpoint character's religion?
Even if your viewpoint character worships Shamalk The Destroyer while the rest of the world is bowing down to The Most Holy of Rollers Garba-Kane, you can't pretend that only Shamalk matters. This God/religion and everything associated with them will shape Viewpoint Character One and their family, but as we see in America, the dominant religion tends to hold sway with the government. Atheists still get Christmas off, and while Jewish children can legally take time away from school to celebrate Rosh Hashanah, you won't see many polytheists running around without homework.
Remember: the society at large is just as important as the individual household.
2. How much power does the dominant religion have in government?
If the dominant religion has little pull in government--maybe your society has an honest separation of church and state, or most politicians are atheist or something--then the likelihood that national holidays will be based on religious holidays are much more slim.
3. Who are your deities?
Is there one? Two? Eighty-nine? What are they associated with? Are they equally important, or are there degrees of importance? Are they mostly human, or incomprehensible? Do they have a physical presence in the world? What symbols are used to represent them? Do these hold power, spiritual or physical? What are their jobs? What purpose do they serve in your world? How do people relate to them? Are they all equally important to individuals? Does everyone know every God in the pantheon, or does each study one or a handful of Gods, going for total understanding of a few rather than an overview of many?
4. What is the history of the religion? What are the myths that are associated with the religion and the Gods? What has your religion appropriated from others?
For Jews, the time of enslavement in Egypt and their freedom from its clutches inspired Passover; Jesus not only set up the basis for Christianity, but provided the dates/inspiration for Christmas and Easter; in Islam, Abraham's willingness to sacrifice Ishmael gave birth to Eid al-Adha. History--and whether you believe in a God or not, history is what these things are--can be a major source of holiday joy. Whether it was a great boon for the church or people at large, or a huge tragedy that people desire to recover from, history is a wonderful resource.
If you know your world's history, you've already gotten up on the right side of the bed.
Myths are also important. These may come from history, or explain natural phenomenon, and holidays may come from them, or from the phenomena being explained. Harvest and spring festivals are seen in nearly all cultures, and are often very closely tied to the Gods associated with such things.
Along with history and mythology, appropriation can also add a lot to the religions of your holidays. When the Christians were converting people around Europe (and beyond), they often found themselves incorporating things into their roster of symbols, holidays, and religious officials to make the new converts feel less like they were being attacked, more at home with the new if they could keep a little bit of the old. A number of Christian Saints were actually pagan Gods that had been stripped of their deity but kept in circulation. It's like patching a child's safety blanket into a quilt--the child is forced to "grow up," but they don't cry as long and the resident adult can eventually get back to sleep, feeling better about themselves even if they don't really deserve it.
Christmas traditions are largely pulled from pagan religions--for instance, Jesus was born in March, scientists tend to agree, but we celebrate in December. Why? Because the pagans celebrated Yule in the winter, and it was convenient. The evergreen, a symbol of eternity, was adopted by Christians as a symbol for Christ, since he (and all he stood for) was supposed to be immortal. Thus the Christmas tree! There was also a Norse answer to Jesus--I can't remember the specifics right now, I'm sorry, I may have to check my brother's tomes--and if I recall correctly, they held a candle ceremony for him in late December. It made sense to just join the celebrations and let everyone feel good about themselves.
Even if the heads of your religions are not appropriating from others, try to think about the relationship the Church of Shamalk has with Garba-Kane's Church, and with the churches of each religion. This is also rooted in their history--how did they get along then, how do they get along now, and how might it affect their celebrations? Maybe they have a mutual holiday--Midsummer, for lack of something more original--and Shamalk orders that idols of Garba-Kane be burned, but Garba-Kane asks that Shamalk's likeness be covered in flowers. Remember that there are two sides to every story, and they don't always match.
5. Put it all together.
Okay, so you've pulled together your religions, your character's religion, your government involvement, your history, myths, deities, and interactions. Now use it. Ask yourself, what holidays would be realistic? Where did they come from? How are they celebrated? Do different people celebrate in different ways? Do they get work off? Whether they celebrate or not? Or do people just kind of nod and say, "yeah, happy Shamalk Day, now get back in the ditch, your break was over six minutes ago"? Are there gatherings, or is it a private holiday? Does family play an important part? Friends? Or is it mainly celebrated between strangers? Think. Write. Play.
Now come Secular Holidays (and also the ones that ride the line). Don't worry, we've laid the groundwork, this one is shorter.
1. Analyze your religious holidays. Are there any that might be subverted into a secular tradition?
Halloween (my favorite holiday) is a wonderful example of a secular holiday born of religion. Beautifully, it was taken from the Celts and originally had strong ties to harvest time--from secular to religious to religious to secular.
In ancient times, the Celts believed that on Samhain, the day of the harvest and halfway between fall equinox and winter solstice, the veil between worlds was thinnest. They would light candles to guide home wayward spirits, but, fearing the wrath of ghosts and Gods alike (also called the fae, in this case), they left out offerings of food and drink to appease them and ask protection for the winter.
When the Christians converted the Celts, they adopted the holiday as "All Saints Eve," to celebrate the saints and the dead. Candles were lit on graves, masses held, and traveling performers (often children) would go from door to door, singing religious songs and putting on short religious plays. People would give out "Soul Cakes" to the kids as a reward, much as carolers were traditionally given treats come Christmas time. Skip forward a few centuries and viola! Children of all faiths going from house-to-house, costumes bared and yelling "TRICK-OR-TREAT" to collect candy from grinning neighbors and strangers.
Your holidays could follow the same route--they might pass through several phases of religious-to-secular-and-back before finally settling on something that might not even be recognizable as analogous to its original version. Maybe they only see one conversion. Do all holidays make this switch, or only some? Why? What's the history there? How much of that history do most people know? For everyone who can spew out something similar to the above on command, how many people don't even realize there's a true purpose to the holiday? To what extent does the government endorse the holiday? What kinds of people celebrate it? What kind of opposition does it see? Why?
2. Again, examine your history.
History, history, history. God damn, history is important, and dude, if you don't like history I honestly am not sure why you're doing so much world building because that's where the fun of it is! Everything is history!
What wars has your country fought? What victories have been won, what losses mourned? Did it secede from another nation? Did it quell a rebellion? Who is it proud of and want to commemorate? What accomplishments have been made? What issues have been solved, or still need solving? What kind of economic system do your people have, and what holidays might it inspire (modern-day Valentines may technically have religious roots, but most people are more than willing to admit that it's mostly a way for candy stores to drum up business between the Christmas and Easter rushes)?
What kind of celebrations are appropriate? Why? Do they set off bombs to celebrate victories of war? Sing dirges to mourn the loss of a hero? Punish themselves and drink away the pain of slavery? Display symbols and colors to denote pride? Put a cat in a barrel and beat it to death, then burn a witch at the stake? It's up to you.
*Big breath* Okay, I'm done for now. There's probably a whole ton of stuff I'm forgetting, but if I remember it later I'll post about it later. I guess what you should take away from this list is, if you want to make holidays (and unless it's explained away by a society run by Jehovah's Witnesses or something, there will be holidays because, let's face it, humans get bored), is know your religions, know your history, and ask questions.
If nothing else, you can sit down and ask yourself what would be really cool/funny/weird/creepy, but totally makes sense in context. You are a writer. If you can find a way to justify it, you need no other permission. So go forth and do writerly things. Like waste your entire Fourth of July listening to Under The Dome on audio book, writing a blog post about holidays, and reading articles about a guy watching Back To The Future. Or something.
Yeah. Day well spent.
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