Festival Creep

Many religions have a busy “festival calendar”. That is to say that, over the course of a year, numerous seasonal observations, celebrations of significant events, folk customs, and other holy days are observed by adherents of any given religion.

Sometimes one festival can become more prominent than others and it can develop a build-up period. The best example of this is the mainstream festival of Christmas. Modern Christmas began as a festival for the Christian religion’s celebration of the birth of their messiah, Jesus Christ. It lasted twelve days from the 25th of December to the 5th of January and was preceded by roughly four weeks (starting on the fourth Sunday before Christmas Day) of solemn introspection known as “Advent”.

However, as Christmas gained in popularity, not just within Christianity, but also in the secular world, the festive element began to creep earlier and earlier in the calendar. No longer did Christmas begin on the 25th of December, it crept forward in time, encroaching on other festival’s territory. Saint Nicholas, “Santa Claus”, was an early casualty of this creep. The feast of Saint Nicholas is held on the 5th or 6th of December and was traditionally a time of gift giving. As the special day of recognition of Saint Nicholas was overtaken by Christmas, so were the lore and customs surrounding the day absorbed into the Christmas celebrations.

Whilst Christmas is the best example of festival creep, and assimilation, it is not the only one. Some festivals may not suffer from as much creep as they do assimilation. In this instance, we see seasonal observances from various religions hybridising into a chimeric “over-culture” celebration that is largely devoid of meaningful context. The prime example of this in British society is Halloween. What likely started out as a harvest celebration, and then added a bit of Ghaelach (Irish Gaelic) mythology, has adopted Christian elements (the “All Hallows” element) and a healthy dose of American brand consumerism until it has become the modern secular celebration we know today.

With so much festival creep and assimilation going on, it can be difficult to keep a festival “on topic”. Anticipation and borrowing are entirely natural things to happen, but it is a shame if the point of a celebration is lost in the celebrating.

There have been numerous attempts at creating a Heathen calendar over the years, and many Heathens seem content to simply borrow the neo-Pagan “wheel of the year”. Frumcræft has its own calendar, based on a reconstructing of the Anglo-Saxon lunisolar reckoning, with various festivities gleaned from British history that work within the overarching worldview of Frumcræft itself. Keeping these festival celebrations distinct is important to the Fruman as it allows the formation and maintaining of tradition which is, itself, a powerful mechanism in the forging and reinforcing of the community bonds within the hearth* and the strȳnd*.

By focusing on the reason for celebrating, Frumcræft keeps each festival relevant to daily life and allows for a smoother transition between seasons than can happen with a more “divided” calendar of celebrations.

*See the wordhoard for definitions.