In Praise of November Holidays

Back when I interned as a reporter in Guadalajara, Mexico, my editor (this charming yet cheeky Englishman from east London) wrote a breezy little op-ed about how all his favorite holidays are the November ones.  Now, I can scarcely  remember even my own articles I wrote that Fall (newspapers are written to be forgotten, after all); but for whatever reason, that little op-ed has stuck with me all these years.

The gist of his article was that, for whatever reason of random statistical clustering, November is when the quirkiest holidays come out to play.  Take for instance today, Nov. 2nd, the Day of the Dead: this is the day when Mexicans all across their Republic celebrate death--not fear, not mourn, not despair over it--but celebrate it!  Death in Mexico is not a fiend, but a friend; not an enemy, but a relative (though some might say "same difference").  They throw parties, they gather with their loved ones, they sing, they dance, they share good drink and good company; they set up shrines to their dearly departed, not to grieve them, but to include them in the festivities.

Contrast this against U.S. Halloween, wherein we fetishize death as intrinsically dark, evil, foreboding, "spooky," a corrupter and stranger to be feared.  Ghosts for us are always unwelcome, unfamiliar, malevolent; we are so unused to the presence of the dead, we think about death so little, that when it actually appears directly before us we refuse to acknowledge its existence--so we have to mock it, dress up in it, make a bunch of kitsch out of it in order to convince ourselves that it doesn't actually exist when it does.

Let me be clear: I actually love American Halloween.  I love that we have at least one macabre moment each year when us youth-worshiping Americans acknowledge the inevitability of death (no matter how obliquely hidden behind slutty-witch outfits, schlocky horror films, and drunken costume parties).  But something about the Mexican Day of the Dead strikes me as being ultimately healthier, as a much more psychologically-sound approach towards facing one's own mortality--as a celebration, not a funeral; as a beloved companion, not a haunting enemy; as an everyday part of life, not an evil to be sequestered off once a year when the dying leaves finally force our attention.

Then take Nov. 5th, Britain's Guy Fawkes Day: in the words of my old English editor, this is the day when his countrymen celebrate what they have all contemplated doing but only one of them has had the guts to attempt: blow up Parliament.  In 1605 you see, Guy Fawkes was caught planting barrels of gun-powder under the Parliament building, in a frankly-ballsy bid to take out the Catholic-repressing government in one fell swoop.  King James I initially instituted the holiday to celebrate Fawkes' failure; but whatever political overtones first permeated the holiday, the anti-Catholicism and pro-Monarchism have long faded out of historical memory, while the bonfires, effigy-burning, and fireworks have all stubbornly stuck around.  Clearly there is something deeper going on here.

For the holiday just seems so uncharacteristic of the English, a people who are renowned the world over for their stodginess, reserve, and unspectacular stability of government.  But for one glorious night each year, the English--the same people, mind you, who forced the Magna Carta on King John in 1215, marched on London in the Peasant Revolt of 1381, rallied around the Jack Cade rebellion of 1450 and Kett's Rebellion in 1549, declared independence in 1776 (we were English colonists, after all), not to mention produced Monty Python's Flying Circus, embraced Punk Rock in the late-70s, and returned "Ding Dong the Witch is Dead" to the pop-charts when Margaret Thatcher died--these same English let loose the simmering anarchic side that had been slyly hidden behind that stiff upper lip all along!

Contrast Guy Fawkes Day with, say, the 4th of July, which was always a much more straightforwardly patriotic affair.  Now, I love fireworks as much as the next bloke; but even with the 4th's roots as a violent declaration of war on the central government, it's difficult for me to contemplate our premier national holiday slowly morphing over time into some delightful celebration of trying to blow up Congress (not that many Americans couldn't get behind that...).  There really isn't a U.S. equivalent to Guy Fawkes Day, and I just find it so deliciously ironic and appropriate that the English, of all people, are who observe it!  Once again, the November holidays are the quirkiest.

Now, I've taken a couple pot-shots on the good ol' U.S. of A. here, but we have a pretty uncharacteristic November holiday as well, in Thanksgiving.  We Americans, to put it charitably, are not known for our graciousness.  We took the celebration of the birth of Christ, of He who overturned the tables of the moneychangers, and commercialized it into the most materialistic holiday of the year. We are less than 5% of the world's population yet produce a quarter of its waste.  We constantly demand bigger, better, faster, newer, and sooner. Giving thanks is generally not our M.O.

But then comes November!  For one weekend every year, wedged right between the gluttonous diabetic-shock of Halloween and the budget-crisis of Christmas, we have a family dinner with no other express purpose than to give thanks for what we have!

Now, that fat turkey is arguably still representative of our infamous gluttony; nevertheless, on Thanksgiving we don't submit wish-lists; we don't party; and we don't even have all that much to commercialize.  Outside that turkey, the only other recognized Thanksgiving tradition is, well, going around the table giving thanks for what we have!  It is a welcome and much-needed break from our relentless  and insane pursuit of acquisition; it provides some much needed perspective of how good we have it--even if that perspective scarcely lasts more than a weekend, at least we get it once a year.  There is no other holiday like it--and like Mexico's Day of the Dead and Britain's Guy Fawkes Day, it comes in crisp, glorious November.

So, like my old English editor in Mexico, I now raise my goblet to the November holidays; when the quirkiest parts of all our national characters come to light; when our better nature's are allowed full expression; when the final descent of Autumn into Winter ironically causes us not to close down with the cold, but to instead open ourselves up all the more, like we all too rarely let ourselves do. (This, perhaps, is why Jimmy Eat World sings "I hope for better/in November...")