Ghost Dancing in December

“The great majority of people will go on observing forms that cannot be explained; they will keep Christmas Day with Christmas gifts and Christmas benedictions; they will continue to do it; and some day suddenly wake up and discover why.”
– G.K. Chesterton, “On Christmas.”

As each holiday season approaches, I am increasingly aware of an emptiness, a sense of detachment from celebrations that once held meaning. Initially, I thought this was simply part of growing older—perhaps a natural fading of holiday magic. But I now believe that the holidays themselves have become Ghost Dances, hollow replicas disconnected from their origins.

For those unfamiliar, "Ghost Dancing" refers to a spiritual movement that swept through several Native American tribes in the late 1800s. The movement held that by practicing the Ghost Dance, believers could reunite with the spirits of their ancestors, who would aid in resisting American expansion.

The modern holiday season is in many ways a Ghost Dance in which Americans invoke lost cultural and spiritual traditions in the attempt to ward off the ever-increasing staderization of life.

The problem with any Ghost Dance is that it’s inherently reactionary. It merely responds to the cultural decay that has already taken hold. Celebrating a holiday presupposes a sense of meaning, but the modern holiday season tries to create meaning through participation alone. This inversion—where participation is expected to produce significance—is what ultimately turns the holiday season into a Ghost Dance.

Most holidays we celebrate today have lost touch with their original cultural or religious significance. Take Halloween, for instance. It’s so far removed from its roots that if you asked the average American about its origins, you’d be met with little more than vague references to Irish traditions or how they used to carve turnips instead of pumpkins. Any connection to All Hallows' Eve or All Saints Day will go unmentioned.

Thanksgiving, too, has suffered this fate. It is reduced to a conflict between two opposing sides. One side sees it as a celebration of a mythic harmony between Native Americans and pilgrims, while the other sees it as the glorification of the alleged genocide of Native Americans. In either case, Thanksgiving’s origin and meaning are lost.

And then there’s Christmas—the second most important holiday in Christianity, in which we celebrate the birth of our Lord, Jesus Christ. For most Americans, Christmas has largely become a secular event. Corporations have co-opted it, turning it into a consumerist spectacle centered around a commercialized Santa Claus and a diluted notion of gift-giving. The deeper, sacred meaning of the holiday is overshadowed by superficial customs and commercial interests.

The disconnect between the holidays and their origins is partly a consequence of America’s increasing cultural diversity. Since 1964, the influx of cultures worldwide has diluted our long-standing traditions. While America never truly had a single monoculture, there were moments when a unified American ethos seemed possible, with European customs blending into something distinctly American.

Previously, immigrants shared certain cultural values—European holidays often centered around the celebration of Christian traditions that could easily be infused into the existing cultural Christianity of American society. The integration of these traditions helped create a semblance of shared heritage. But after 1964, the arrival of immigrants from cultures unfamiliar, and often opposed, to Western Christianity led to a stripping down of religious elements from many holidays. Christmas, for instance, is harder to celebrate in its original form when it centers on Christ and the majority of new celebrants do not share that belief. Thus, the holiday has been increasingly secularized to ensure inclusivity, at the cost of meaning.

This dilution is also fueled by American capitalism's drive to commodify cultural rituals. For retailers, Christmas has become less about Jesus and more about maximizing sales, exchanging gifts, and generating profit. The commercialization of the holiday prioritizes its revenue potential, often at the expense of its deeper meaning. Santa Claus, for instance, is more profitable than the figure of Jesus; anything that boosts sales is magnified, while elements that can't be monetized are minimized or stripped away altogether.

Thanksgiving, for instance, resists commodification. It centers on a family meal and gratitude for what we already have, which doesn’t lend itself to excessive spending. Consequently, Thanksgiving has nearly vanished from the retail landscape, overshadowed by the push to promote Christmas, a much more profitable holiday. Walk into any store the week of Halloween, and you’ll see the spooky decorations swept aside to make way for Christmas displays, as the holiday season transforms into a commercial countdown.

Easter, though less commercialized than Christmas, has also suffered a transformation. Originally a celebration of Christ’s resurrection, Easter has been reduced to a holiday about the Easter Bunny and gift baskets. This distorted version is often wielded by atheists as an argument against Christianity’s legitimacy, mistakenly linking Easter to ancient pagan worship of Ishtar, the Assyrian and Babylonian goddess of fertility. It is a stupid argument easily refuted by the fact that Easter, in most languages, is referred to as “Pascha” and is directly rooted in the Christian celebration of the resurrection.

In essence, our holidays have become Ghost Dances—attempts to cling to traditions that many no longer fully understand, while simultaneously trying to unite an increasingly diverse population.

The holidays have little power in a society no longer unified by shared cultural or religious values. Instead, we exist within a multiplicity of cultures, where meaningful traditions are diluted to avoid offending anyone. Thus, what remains are empty shells, simulations of what these holidays once represented.

This hollowness is something many of us feel instinctively. Yet, we continue to participate, putting on the mask, and going through the motions, because we need to. Humans need traditions; we crave meaning, connection, and a sense of belonging. So, even though the essence has been stripped away, we dance on.

If we wish to turn our holidays into more than a Ghost Dance, we must make an intentional effort to reconnect with their origins. Thanksgiving can again become a time of gratitude for what we have and a celebration of the American origins, Halloween can be reconnected to All Saints’ Day. Christmas can once more focus on the birth of Christ. In our homes, we have the power to honor the true essence of these celebrations.

The secular versions of these holidays will eventually fade, precisely because they lack substance. When times get hard, people do not cling to empty rituals; they hold fast to beliefs and traditions that have real meaning. Those who remember the deeper significance of these holidays will carry them forward, celebrating Christmas as the birth of Christ, Easter as the resurrection, and Thanksgiving as a time for gratitude. Meanwhile, the commercialized, empty, rootsless versions will vanish in time.

When I see the commercial machine don the "skin suit" of our traditions, I take solace in knowing that these superficial versions cannot last. Built on the shifting sands of consumerism, they lack the foundation necessary to endure. Appealing to everyone means ultimately appealing to no one. It is in small, dedicated communities that the heart of these holidays will endure, carrying forward the true spirit that gives life and purpose to our celebrations.

-TJS