I think a lot about my beloved dead at Samhain. At rituals both public and private I place pictures of my grandparents, departed friends, and my beloved cat Princes on altars dedicated to the dead every October/November. This type of behavior is common among Witches, Samhain-season is said to be the time of year when the veil between the world is thinnest, but it’s also thin in late November and December, perhaps even more so.
Our society today tends to operate under the assumption that all of the Fall/Winter holidays celebrated in the United States are mostly unchanging monoliths:
“Christmas** has always been this way.”
“Halloween has always been about ghosts and monsters.”
“Thanksgiving has always consisted of a large meal and a mostly quiet day.”
But those assertions are actually not all true. The big three holidays of Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Halloween* have undergone massive change over the last 150 years. Did you know that the jack-o-lantern was once a Thanksgiving decoration?
One of the most startling transformations has been that of the Christmas-season, which was once a time for scary stories. Ghost stories were one a common part of the holiday, replaced mostly today by presents and parties. About the only “ghost story” still told with any regularity in December is Dickens’ A Christmas Carol though I’m not sure how many people think of it as a ghost story.
Ghosts are an important part of my Holiday season, and I encounter more of them in November and December every year than I do in October. Part of that is because of just who we share holidays with, and how we decorate for them. I went to my grandparents house most years for Thanksgiving as a child, and usually during the Christmas-season too. Halloween was a holiday celebrated with neighborhood friends, not with extended family. Halloween also wasn’t a holiday my family really decorated for beyond a few odds and ends. Yuletide decorations are another matter entirely, and were inescapable in my family.
My childhood was far from perfect. I am a child of divorce and an absentee mother. There are all sorts of things from my past I will probably never completely reckon with, but Thanksgiving and Christmas were magical holidays. And as an adult I’ve tried very hard to recreate the sense of wonder those days provided me.
Much of my Thanksgiving table is a recreation of my grandmother’s. I want my house to smell like hers did on Thanksgiving day, and I do a pretty good job of it. I don’t make all of the same dishes, but there are always lima beans just like she made, and they are always delicious. I watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade and football just like I did at her and Gramps’ house. If what is remembered lives, then my grandparents are alive in my house every Thanksgiving. Their ghosts haunt me in the best way possible.
In my basement there are six large plastic bins full of Yuletide decorations. In those bins are nearly thirty years of memories and keepsakes. And once something has been added to the Holiday Bins they inhabit those bins forever. I don’t throw any of it away even if I no longer utilize it. All of those decorations have their own stories and energies, and I want to hold onto those stories for as long as I live.
Deep in one of those bins are a series of very small stockings with names on them like Lizzie and Princess. Those stockings belonged to the now deceased cats of me and my brother. And every year while I’m going through the decorations I come across those stockings. And every year I hold Princess’s stocking close to my heart and cry.
The tears are sad, but they are also happy. Holding the stocking reminds me of the Christmas mornings when she would build tunnels through discarded wrapping paper and zoom around the living room like she was possessed. Those memories make me smile, and while I’m sure Princess never realized she had a stocking, she was still a part of my holidays. I treasure those memories, and I look forward to crying and smiling once again this year when I encounter her ghost in those bins.
There has always been a large degree of nostalgia that comes with Thanksgiving and Yule. We listen to many of the same old songs, we eat the same foods, we rewatch favorite movies, and repeat certain activities. More so than any other time of year I see and encounter so many ghosts. There’s Jimmy Stewart having his wonderful life and Burl Ives telling the story of a famous reindeer. Virginia is reminded every year that there is a Santa Claus while people sing along to a White Christmas. With its long and chilly nights, December seems tailor made for ghosts.
For many of us, Thanksgiving and Yuletide have always been the most social of holidays. There are parties, family events, and quiet moments with loved ones. And after those loved ones leave us, their ghosts still hang around the Holidays, finding purchase in treasured heirlooms and handed-down customs. The veil is at its thinnest when we revisit our most cherished memories.
*According to most polling these are Americans three favorite holidays, and usually in this order, though in some surveys Thanksgiving tops Christmas.
**I use the word Christmas a lot in this article because I grew up celebrating the holiday. For me today, Christmas is just one particular holiday in the season of Yuletide.
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