Customization of U.S. Holidays: Agency and Nonconformity

Abstract

Scholars have long sought to understand the meanings and implications of holidays for societies, groups, and individuals. Normative observances for holidays shift over time, which scholars have explained primarily with macro-level forces such as galvanizing events/trends and priorities of social institutions, but this approach tends to undersell individual and familial agency to customize holidays to their own circumstances, including to reject or resist normative symbols, meanings, and practices, either in part or wholly. Micro-level processes, then, offer insight into what happens when cultural projections about how to observe a holiday collide with an individual’s decision about whether and how to participate, especially with respect to negotiation processes. While the extant literature is robust regarding rituals commonly attached to holidays, there has been much less focus specifically on how agency shapes nonconformity to (or adoption of) normative scripts, including novel expressions. More research would also be helpful for understanding the dynamics of how families and other small groups negotiate shared observances. Finally, micro-level processes may serve—under certain conditions—to promote macro-level change in holiday patterns. To stimulate further research on processes involving agency and perceived constraints to holiday observation, I suggest a preliminary typology of U.S. holiday customization for individuals.

1. Introduction

Scholars have long sought to understand the meanings and implications of holidays for societies, communities, small groups, and individuals (Barnett [1954] 1976; Greninger 1979), although the research output is surprisingly thin given that holidays intersect with important aspects of economic and social life (Etzioni 2000; Hancock and Rehn 2011) and holiday-based information may be used as “global” variables to infer the underlying values and beliefs of a society (Etzioni 2004). Holidays are underpinned and re-created episodically at the cultural or subcultural level via symbols and rituals (defined here as repeated series of actions that imbue meaning) that reflect cultural ideologies, values, and norms. Arguments are less often made that holidays shape broader culture (Etzioni 2004; Pleck 2000; Zayas et al. 2017); in fact, evidence suggests that holidays may have lagged behind societal changes such as gender roles since the 1960s (Etzioni 2004). History suggests that holidays are malleable in that their associated symbols, norms, and popularity may wax and wane (Amin 2019; Schmidt 1993). Thus, macro-level shifts in whether and how holidays are observed over time constitute a form of social change. In another measure of their flexibility, some holiday templates have proven rather “portable” across countries via glocality processes, with elements of a particular holiday being adapted to the needs and character of the adopting society or culture (Bodenhorn [1993] 1995; Löfgren [1993] 1995; Moeran and Skov [1993] 1995). For instance, Christmas celebrations are common over much of the world, though they display considerable idiosyncrasies across specific nations and cultures (Kürti 2020; Miller [1993] 1995a, [1993] 1995b).

This paper will explore how holiday change has been studied and note that extant studies have largely been centered on macro-level forces (such as economic, social, and/or historical events and trends) that have changed society, and that with those changes, holidays have been birthed, adapted, or led to the decline of others. Some works have looked at how new holidays have arisen from concerted efforts by key individuals, e.g., Kwanzaa (Pleck 2001) and Mother’s Day (Jones 1980), as well as how long-dormant holidays such as Valentine’s Day have abruptly surged in popularity (Schmidt 1993). In many cases, social institutions have held competing visions of whether and/or what a holiday should represent (Bartunek and Do 2011); studies of macro-level holiday processes assume that social institutions promote one or more “ideal” version(s) of holiday meaning and observance. The norms of high-profile holidays are understood by most people in a culture, even if norms may not always be readily codified or expressly communicated (Caplow 1984; Kuper [1993] 1995; Wallendorf and Arnould 1991).

Social institutions such as educational entities, government, corporations, sport, organized religion, and others often weigh in on holiday prescriptions and proscriptions. Individuals and small groups may be “socialized into” the meanings, ideologies, values, and norms promoted by agents such as institutions (Mannell and Kleiber 1997, pp. 225–26), as well as those corresponding to a subculture, though individuals can exercise agency to adopt certain aspects of these projections, resist or outright reject others, and perhaps create holiday meanings and enactments of their own. The mass media offers a prime example of how a holiday may be promoted via a social institution in that it can “project” both manifest and latent holiday themes and scripts. The audience reception model proposes that consumers receive and evaluate mass media messaging, leading to multiple possible outcomes for consumers, including acceptance of the encoded message as it was intended, resistance to the message in terms of opposition to it, or negotiated settlement between aspects of acceptance and resistance (Shaw 2017).

Less commonly, holiday research has looked to smaller units in society to better understand how individuals, dyads, and small groups (defined as micro-level for purposes of this paper) make decisions about potential participation. These smaller-scale interactions with normative social scripts and overhanging cultural traditions may yield a better understanding of whether and how holidays are constructed at each observance. In particular, to what extent do individuals perceive pressure to conform to broader holiday norms? Even less investigated is the degree to which they exercise agency to craft novel meanings that better fit their identities, lives, families, and place in the world. To what degree do they actively place their customized expressions of the holiday in conscious opposition to societal scripts?

Accordingly, this paper explores the following questions:

(1)

How have scholars tended to explain societal changes in holiday observances?

(2)

Assuming that social institutions and other socialization agents project “ideal” holiday norms and values in a bid to influence individuals (Santino 1995), how have scholars sought to understand the ways in which social institutions shape micro-level processes involving individuals, dyads, and other small groups in terms of holiday symbols, meanings, and practices?

• Why do some individuals and small groups “go against the grain” in terms of resisting aspects of macro-level projections of holiday ideals? What meaning(s) does nonconformity have for them, and do they experience social penalties for exercising agency in this way?
• How do some individuals customize their holiday expressions by substituting alternatives for prescribed ones?
• Can a typology for customization be identified to categorize individuals’ type and degree of customization?
• How may customization contribute to novel holiday attitudes and behavior for individuals and small groups?

(3)

How can future research investigate agency and micro-level processes as potential catalysts for broad holiday change in communities or society?

Holidays include both nationally celebrated commemorations (Congressional Research Service 2021) as well as unofficial or folk holidays, which “…although widely celebrated, they are not officially recognized by the government. We are not given time off from work or school to observe them” (Santino 1995, p. xix). While there are numerous definitions of holidays, I use one offered by Santino (1995, p. xviii): “a socially recognized day or period of days set aside to celebrate an important person or event of the past…or to mark a transition of some kind, such as the beginning of the new year or the turning of the season”. This definition is more inclusive than some but is not being employed here as a catch-all to describe earned vacation time from paid work or leisure time more generally. Although holidays may be widely celebrated within a society, they are interpreted in personal ways by participants (Santino 1995, p. xx), which allows for the exercise of considerable latitude with respect to agency and customizing holiday meanings and practices. Holidays help us keep our bearings within the year, often mark specific seasons, and prepare us for the next holiday(s) (Santino 1995).

Section 2 presents an overview of research that has sought to explain holiday change in the U.S. The review is organized by levels of analysis in society that have been investigated as possible reservoirs of change, i.e., society and its institutions, communities, small groups, and individuals. It is acknowledged that these levels may overlap with respect to specific sources of change. The review is intended to highlight key findings rather than to serve as a comprehensive treatment of studies across all U.S. holidays.

2. Sources of Holiday Change—Overview

2.1. Society and Its Institutions

Societal expressions of holiday meanings, symbols, and traditions may lend the appearance of stability in our memories, but there are often dramatic changes in their underlying ideologies, values, norms, and practices over the longer view of decades or centuries (Nissenbaum [1996] 1998). An approach commonly used by scholars to explain why holidays have changed is to identify the influential events, sociocultural forces, organizations, and, occasionally, individuals that led to the genesis/adoption of each holiday in the U.S. (Siskind 1992; Wills 2003). Thus, scholars have relied primarily on sociohistorical approaches to understand changes in holidays at the societal level, including how meanings, societal scripts, and participation levels have shifted for specific holidays.

Cronin and Adair (2002) note key macro-level phenomena that fueled the rise in popularity of St. Patrick’s Day: the Irish famine of 1845–1851 and concomitant immigration into the Americas, labor union politicization, and the annual parades. Social scientists have also examined sociocultural forces that shaped the development and growth of virtually all prominent holidays, e.g., MLK Jr. Day (Dennis 2004) and Kwanzaa (Wilde 2004), etc. Scholars have also been looking out for emergent holidays. For example, Katz (1998) proposes that mass media can substitute something new for a holiday that may be falling out of favor but might still be celebrated formally and, thus, can contribute to the invention of prospective holidays, e.g., the Super Bowl, the NFL draft, and presidential election night.

Thanksgiving represents an apropos case study given its history and distinctive observance in the U.S. Considerable credit is often afforded to Sarah Josepha Hale, who, as editor of Godey’s Magazine and Lady’s Book, wrote an annual editorial about Thanksgiving for decades and lobbied leaders and organizations for Thanksgiving to be transformed from a regional holiday celebrated primarily in New England to a national one (Adamczyk 2002; Wills 2003). From its colonial days until the 1860s, Thanksgiving celebrations in the U.S. were often about rowdy outdoor activities, primarily involving males (Pleck 2000). In the latter part of the 19th century, celebrations began to transform to quieter domestic affairs involving family and friends, especially among the middle class, what Pleck (1999, p. 773) terms the “domestic occasion.” This shift resulted from the socioeconomic upheaval of the Industrial Revolution and movement of workers from New England to the south and west, which served to create collective yearning for a more intimate and less complicated time, specifically one in which hearth and home were prioritized by a homecoming among newly geographically separated extended family members (Pleck 1999). Family scholars have noted that the Industrial Revolution led to the phenomenon of “separate spheres” related to domestic and workplace milieus in which women primarily occupied the former and men the latter (Coontz 1992). With its new emphasis on domesticity, Thanksgiving preparations and hosting became primarily the province of women (Pleck 1999).

Collegiate and professional football games on Thanksgiving Day have also served to reinforce the holiday, including providing something for primarily men to listen to or watch within the domestic setting around the traditional meal (Pleck 1999). A sociocultural force that boosted the visibility and character of Thanksgiving included the Gimbels and Macy’s Parades, which infused the holiday with commercialism and made the linkage to Christmas more explicit. School systems’ embrace of curricula involving the “First Thanksgiving” promoted American civics and assimilation among children of immigrant families during the early twentieth century (Adamczyk 2002). “First Thanksgiving” books and other teaching resources used by educators have often framed Pilgrims’ initial interactions with Indigenous Peoples as more benign than historical records indicate (Adare-Tasiwoopa ápi and Adams-Campbell 2016), ignoring issues of colonization, disease, internment, and genocide. These books served to socialize children and adolescents toward certain American ideologies, such as privileging White and Eurocentric culture and ideals and Manifest Destiny for Europeans arriving in America. This “mythic” story was considered useful for public schools to socialize new immigrants with a centralized “origin story” for all Americans (Adare-Tasiwoopa ápi and Adams-Campbell 2016). More recently, according to Pleck (2000, p. 1), a “postsentimental” era emerging from at least the 1970s has created a societal pushback against excessive sentimentality toward domesticity surrounding Thanksgiving and Christmas. Postsentimentalism, however, likely provided greater license for communities, families, and individuals to customize particulars of these holidays to better suit their beliefs and needs and overcome constraints on full participation.

Halloween has been theorized as a sort of antithesis to other holidays in the United States given its use of often frightening symbols and anti-festival rituals that challenge or outright contravene social conventions generally observed at other times of the year (Belk 1990; Caplow 2004). Belk (1990) refers to Halloween as “an evolving American consumption ritual” and argues that it offers the opportunity to “blow off steam” via the relaxation of social norms, which encourages role reversals (and their inherent power, however temporary) and exploration via masquerade. It is an opportunity for children to confront fears toward frightening images, including those regarding death (Belk 1990; Clark 2019). Belk notes that Halloween offers an opportunity for children to test and learn from liminal boundaries, particularly involving the trick-or-treat ritual. The symbols and rituals of Halloween are diametrically opposed to the domestic realm, most organized religions, and dietary recommendations. Thus, the holiday itself offers celebrants the opportunities to try out roles and push conventional boundaries, albeit with normative guardrails. With respect to Halloween costumes, consumers can choose to masquerade as “manly” by projecting a desired self-image that aligns with a particular cultural icon, e.g., as a cowboy, football star, firefighter, or superhero (Alexander 2014). At least outwardly, Halloween appears to offer an individual (and their guardian(s)) considerable agency in selecting a costume to wear. This opportunity may embolden the wearer to try out other roles and identities (Boas 2016). However, costumes presented by retailers generally offer constraining choices for boys and girls, and ones that tend to reinforce societal gender roles at that (Nelson 2000). Boas (2016) and Clark (2005) make the point that Halloween rituals become sites of social learning and enculturation, but these may become more about reinforcing the status quo than social change per se.

Scholars point out that contemporary celebrations of some holidays recognized in the U.S. have origins, meanings, and rituals that have been borrowed from other societies and at other times. For instance, Halloween in the U.S. has been shaped by a constellation of cultural practices that occurred elsewhere in the world over prior centuries (Linton 1951); nonetheless, these disparate practices have been molded into a distinctly American expression of the holiday today (Amin 2019; Santino 1983). Likewise, Christmas and Valentine’s Day were imported from England in the 1800s and underwent modification to American society (Schmidt 1993). Christmas was established as a Christian holiday in the 4th century under the rule of the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great; the holiday at least partially replaced three prior pre-Christianity holidays: Saturnalia, Kalends, and Dies Natalis Invicti (Miller [1993] 1995a). Finally, Curtis (1995) discusses how St. Nicholas (and then Santa Claus) displaced the Greek goddess Artemis in the 14th century and subsequently appropriated many of her attributes and social functions over the centuries.

2.2. Communities

Compared to treating societies and social institutions as sources of holiday change, scholars have less often studied communities as springboards for change (although festivals, being generally community-based, have received considerable scholarly attention). To begin, Adamczyk (2002) details how contemporaneous meanings of Thanksgiving are socially constructed via collective memory rather than simply assuming that past events and processes are remembered and enacted in an immutable way. She draws upon Durkheim’s ([1912] 1995) work on commemoration rituals and tradition to frame the past, as well as Maurice Halbwach’s theory on how collective memory serves to remember and shape the past by bending it toward present concerns (Russell 2006). Individuals’ repositories of these collective memories and individuals are embedded in specific groups, so these groups imbue individuals’ perspectives with concerns and lived experiences, leading to diverse remembrances within an overarching collective memory. With this approach, collective memories can become unmoored from historical accounts, including the omission of information. Adamczyk (2002) notes that some aspects of Thanksgiving remembrance are not reflected in historical documents pertaining to the Pilgrims in Plymouth. Instead, she argues that collective meanings of Thanksgiving have changed considerably over time, from nation building in the 1600s and 1700s to patriotism surrounding the Civil War years until the end of the 19th century, coinciding with an increased emphasis on domestic pursuits such as “coming home” to a shared dinner and football viewing with family and friends. Finally, she notes that the meanings of Thanksgiving have been reevaluated over the past 50 years in light of the recognition of the maltreatment of Indigenous Peoples, both in the decades after the “First Thanksgiving” and in the centuries that followed.

Some cities in the U.S. have hosted Krampus-themed festivals as an alternative or supplement to traditional Christmas parades. For instance, the Philadelphia Krampuslauf attempted to bolster a new group identity, one that celebrates Christmas within mainstream society but also from a subcultural vantage point (Hutcheson 2016). Now known as the Parade of Spirits, the Krampuslauf took on several meanings for participants, including expression of neo-Pagan beliefs loosely based on Germanic or Scandinavian mythologies, artistic creativity through hand crafted costumes, a means to socialize children to understand and cope with complementary “lighter” and “darker” aspects of life, a way to forge group identity, and to connect to humanity through sharing culturally diverse motifs (Hutcheson 2016). In opposition to Santa Claus, Belsnickle is a Krampus-like figure who punishes naughty children. The parade, then, offered participants the chance to contest more conventional ideologies and rituals surrounding Christmas as too constraining or even damaging, including extensive decoration, shielding of children from “darker” but natural aspects of life, gift-receiving regardless of behavior, and commercialism. A concern of organizers was that the parade could become too popular and thereby be diluted by “mainstream” social forces, particularly if onlookers were attracted mainly by the carnivalesque aspects. Other communities have rejected Krampus-based community activities; for example, the city of Pikeville, Kentucky, rejected a scheduled December 2024 event (Davis 2024). While officials did not provide a reason in their press statement, media sources mentioned that there had been backlash in the community regarding the supposed “satanic” nature of the proposed festival.

2.3. Small Groups

Pleck (2000) emphasizes that families offer the power to initiate change in holiday values and norms in society: “They have usually found a way to modify what were relatively rigid forms, to change the scripts and alter the meanings of these rituals. They have shortened and lengthened, simplified and elaborated, and created some entirely new celebrations” (p. 20), and “Once created, the family rituals of the Victorians functioned as active agents of social change, helping to shape middle-class and national identity, sideline distinctive regional or ethnic customs, and disseminate the ideal of domesticity” (p. 234). Family rituals take on considerable importance as they reflect the symbols, values, and identities of the group that performs them. Even when normative practices are followed, families may express their own “little traditions” within the normative context, e.g., turkey may be prepared in a particular manner or with special side dishes each year at Thanksgiving (Wallendorf and Arnould 1991, p. 23). “Symbolic ethnicity” is another strategy used to customize holiday norms to include certain foods and practices in order to sustain ethnic connections when living a non-ethnic lifestyle more generally (Pleck 2000, p. 64). Freeman and Bell (2013, p. 338) note that “Participation in the rituals of Christmas reflects women’s interpretation of what is important for them and their family”. Immigrants to the U.S. would often preserve aspects of holidays from their country of origin, incorporating them side-by-side with many American holiday customs (Pleck 2000) and thereby contributing to holiday customization within their families (and on a grander scale, their communities).

Holiday traditions are often viewed as a cultural or societal process whereby certain romanticized elements from a real or imagined past are idealized and emulated (Parker 2002). In contrast, Mason and Muir (2013, p. 607) argue that family tradition is “conjured up” by the everyday realities of families through time, thus offering a more micro-level and likely “organic” analysis of the formation of tradition. More specifically, recollections are compartmentalized into past, present, and future eras that contain enmeshed memories, moral judgments, and family history. These eras differ considerably, often focusing more on the interests of children and grandchildren with advancing time. Mason and Muir (2013) argue that these eras empower individuals to better gauge family style(s) and present opportunities to share and negotiate stories with one other, including with individuals from younger generations. The authors examined how celebrations were planned for by couples, highlighting how disagreements were made more overt and specific enactments negotiated between them. Other studies find that blended families present numerous change dynamics in terms of how holidays are celebrated/negotiated, especially in terms of which rituals will be preserved, opportunities to introduce new traditions, and holiday roles that new family members will perform (Clark 2019; Whiteside 2004).

2.4. Individuals

Scholars have documented the longstanding objections made by prominent citizens and organizations that holidays have become too commercialized and thereby distort “true” meanings or undermine functions of other social institutions such as the family or religion (Miller [1993] 1995a; Santino 1996; Schmidt 1991). Also, many studies report that symbols and practices surrounding holidays have been activated by marketers so that holidays socialize individuals into consumptive practices particular to the holiday (see, for example, Levinson et al. 1992). This sentiment has long established precedent for countercultural rejection and exercise of agency to avoid pecuniary symbols associated with commerce such as Santa Clause and extensive gift giving; Christmas, Easter, Halloween, and Valentine’s Day-themed candy, cards, and decorations; turkey and feasting on Thanksgiving; and at-home fireworks displays for Independence Day.

In particular, there is considerable documented opposition to rituals and consumptive practices surrounding Valentine’s Day in the U.S. (Close and Zinkhan 2006, 2009). Some may not wish to be reminded that they are not in a relationship, while others may find the sense of obligation, its ritualistic gift giving and other expected behaviors, gender role expectations, and/or commercialism to be off-putting (Close and Zinkhan 2006). Thus, resistance may take the form of “alternative consumption”, whereby couples/individuals choose to mark the holiday in their own way rather than following the cultural script (Close and Zinkhan 2009, p. 200). What they term “anti-consumption” is also not uncommon as resistance to commercialism, whereby gift, retail, and market resistance may occur. They find that “gift resistance” includes opting out of buying gifts entirely, putting bounds on spending, and promoting this form of resistance to others, while “retail resistance” consists of boycotting a specific retailer associated with the holiday. Finally, “market resistance” results in opting out of Valentine’s Day participation completely.

Specific gender role expectations have been associated with Valentine’s Day; male college students reported more obligation to give substantial gifts than women, while women reported more pressure to prepare for the day in terms of their physical appearance and clothing (Close and Zinkhan 2006). Not surprisingly, gender differences have been reported with respect to attitudes about the holiday and how it is observed (Close and Zinkhan 2006; Ogletree 1993). Given the apparent level of discontent about the contemporary celebration of this holiday, it is perhaps not surprising that there have been a number of recently introduced alternative holidays and practices, such as G/Malentine’s Day, Anti-Valentine’s Day, Singles Awareness Day, and self-gifting.

Etzioni (2004, p. 5) wrote that “Selective observance, rather than a simple return to tradition, has become the norm. This is evident when one compares those rituals various individuals and groups seek to uphold or adapt versus those they choose to abandon. These are decisions that are increasingly made on the basis on what seems meaningful to the contemporary generation rather than on what is handed down from earlier ones”. Etzioni (2004) suggests that younger generations will be more likely to strike out on their own than blithely follow dominant holiday norms. This is consistent with findings that Gen Z and Gen Y are more likely to participate in Friendsgiving than older generations (Damianos 2021), a holiday that only began to gain internet traction in 2014 in the U.S. (Google Trends 2024). Although Thanksgiving often avoids charges of being too commercialized relative to other prominent holidays, it has been criticized on dimensions that might lead some to reject, modify, or creatively customize their observation of it. For instance, Thanksgiving commemorates history that included colonialism and gross mistreatment of Indigenous Peoples, can be overly sentimental with respect to family and domesticity (especially if one’s particular family life is not conducive to one’s well-being), promotes stereotypical gender role expectations that can be perceived as limiting and/or offensive, endorses eating and drinking in an excessive/wasteful way, and prescribes a particular type of meat as the main dish. Friendsgiving arose, in part, out of resistance to cultural norms surrounding the rigidity of celebrating with family and instead offers a way to celebrate with anyone one chooses.

3. Discussion: A Preliminary Typology of Holiday Customization

It is proposed that when individuals are confronted with prescribed holiday meanings, values, and normative scripts within their culture or subculture, they may respond in four types of ways.

The first type, the Adopters, enact most of the primary meanings, values, and customary practices/rituals, thus conforming their attitudes and role enactments to meet those expected within their (sub)culture. Adoption can represent agency in action via decisions to conform to most socially prescribed (and proscribed) aspects of the holiday. Adopters cannot meet all norms and practices of the holiday, of course, since those can be myriad, sometimes contradictory, and perceived constraints may be too strong or numerous. However, there is generally little customization of key norms for Adopters, as they generally are not enthusiastic about “alternative” holiday values or participation in novel practices. However, they may exercise some degree of creativity in expression, or “little traditions” as termed by Wallendorf and Arnould (1991, p. 23), once higher-ranking normative practices are followed. For instance, after visiting the gravesite of a loved one on Memorial Day, the person might eat dinner at the departed loved one’s favorite restaurant.

Selective Adopters choose to accept some but not most holiday prescriptions. In doing so, they create a largely abbreviated version of the holiday. Etzioni’s (2004, p. 5) quote referenced earlier on “selective observance…has become the norm” appears to apply here to Selective Adopters. For example, some might observe Thanksgiving in traditional ways, such as communing with family and having a large meal, but the food itself might consist of restaurant “takeout” items of a nontraditional nature, such as seafood or all-vegetarian items.

Creative Adopters, in addition to not subscribing to many holiday norms and values, exercise agency to creatively and substantially transform the holiday to meet their own meanings and values while preserving the overarching spirit of the holiday as they perceive it. Based on either principled resistance or disregard due to inconvenience, they engage in alternative activities and perhaps even entirely different variants of the holiday, such as G/Malentine’s Day instead of Valentine’s Day. G/Malentine’s Day relaxes the assumptions of romantic love and intensive gift-giving while still focusing on expressions of platonic love, particularly friendship amongst women and men, respectively.

Non-Adopters reject key (and most, if not all) aspects of the holiday, either because they resist based on the nature of the top-down prescriptions/proscriptions, on sociocultural or moral grounds, and/or disregard holiday participation because it does not fit personal, familial, or cultural circumstances. Notably, Non-Adopters neither customize a holiday through abbreviated prescribed aspects nor via substitution of substantially novel practices. However, they may choose to spend a holiday engaged in errands or alternative leisure activities, thereby substituting essentially non-holiday activities for holiday-related ones. For example, Memorial Day and/or Labor Day may be enjoyed simply as a (paid) day off with no or very little effort directed at holiday activities per se.

4. Conclusions

Nearly a quarter century ago, Etzioni (2000) called for more attention toward a general (and sociological) theory of holidays, yet there is still no widely agreed upon theory (however, see his categorization by the societal functions of recommitment versus tension-management, and that holidays tend to appear in alternating order by these functions throughout the calendar year). One important consideration for a general theory of holidays is that it would not only explain holiday birth, growth, and decline but would predict the future of holidays as well. A step toward better understanding holiday change would be to direct more attention toward agency and nonconformity within communities, small groups, and by individuals instead of the more frequent approach that has attributed change to influential events and broad sociocultural forces (Siskind 1992; Wills 2003). To this end, I summarized efforts to explain holiday change in Section 2 of this article. I also offer, as a modest step in this direction, an initial typology for later elaboration, one that categorizes individuals by adoption of norms and values, selective adoption, observation of the holiday through substituted experiences, or rejection of most, if not all, aspects. A typological framework can offer an early step toward understanding how many categories may be present, as well as how categories differ from one another. Typologies, then, can hint at theoretical insights about category formation and what their implications are, not just for the “original” units of analysis (e.g., individuals and families) but also for societal change involving holidays. With a typology of holiday customization, we may begin to see that customization processes follow a similar pattern across at least some holidays, thereby contributing to a more generalized theory, at least with respect to customization and social change. In the next section, I propose specific avenues to further these aims of promoting more empirical work that can both generate and test theoretical insights about holiday practices as well as their change.

5. Future Directions

While a general model of holidays may be optimal, most studies have focused instead on one holiday at a time given their distinctive elements. Studies involving agency and nonconformity may need to be approached in that same manner—at least initially—since relevant meanings, values, and norms attached to holidays differ dramatically in some cases. Potential constraints that people face may also be holiday-specific; for example, they may be couched in the origins or cultural meanings attached to a holiday. For instance, individuals may resist or dissociate from holidays to oppose their commercialism, planned assimilation of others to U.S. culture, promotion of group identities that exclude “others”, gender role expectations, heterosexuality assumptions, particular religious expression, and/or speed-up of daily life and sense of increased obligation, just to name a few.

Since participants in holiday studies may not readily offer up rationales for their resistance due to social desirability concerns about “cutting against the grain” or because they may not have yet conceptualized these rationales fully, qualitative researchers will likely need to tailor their inteview questions and follow-up probes with principles of holiday customization specifically in mind. Survey designers should also include appropriate measures for these concepts, some of which will need to be designed “from scratch” and thus tested for their psychometric properties. While some studies cited in this article describe specific meanings and practices of individuals or families with respect to a holiday, most do not appear to have been designed to explain them by pivoting quickly from asking about beliefs and practices to asking specifically about their origins and motivations/rationales related to customization, which parties are involved in planning and carrying out customization, how customized practices appear to be received and whether/how they were propagated by others, and any benefits or social costs that may accrue to breaching or substituting for holiday norms. Further investigation using in-depth interviews or conditional survey logic would allow for a more direct and elaborated study of agency and nonconformity, as well as their potential linkages to other small groups, organizations, or communities. In other words, extant studies have been relatively few and have likely only detected evidence of these customizations at a surface level; studying them directly and with greater intentionality would encourage greater empirical understanding of celebrants’ meanings and behaviors and possible theoretical growth for the field.

Data collection efforts should also include information on general leisure constraints, including available funds, time commitments due to paid work or caregiving, physical and emotional availability, and cultural ideologies, since these could shape the adoption of at least some holiday prescriptions. Although leisure constraints theory has been well investigated with respect to leisure participation generally (Godbey et al. 2010; Kono and Ito 2023), it has not been applied much to holidays, which is a considerable oversight. At a minimum, feeling the need to set aside a designated time for leisure may serve to help us “make the time” to enjoy leisure in the face of competing activities (Schoneboom 2018). Similarly, though a holiday may be perceived as having obligatory aspects that may not all be agreeable, these can prove useful to prevent incursions of more disagreeable compulsory activities—such as paid work. Individuals may underreport activities and time spent in holiday observance since participation in holiday activities could be viewed as time not well spent under the dominant “American Work Ethic”; some study participants might view “excessive” holiday participation as frivolous, and perhaps even more so if these activities are unconventional. Participants may also underreport holiday activities if they are composed of less “grand” gestures or actions that might be viewed as unremarkable to study participants, such as treating their pet for a holiday or sending a message to a loved one at a distance. Given these factors, even those who may initially report little or no involvement in a holiday may—when asked to reflect further—recall participation in additional ways.

Future work could develop survey items and/or scales to then create a quantitative typology of holiday customization via an empirically-driven cluster analysis (see Heo et al. 2013 for an applied example of the general methodology and a strategy for typology validation), one that would likely need to be initially specific to one holiday at a time. It could also yield additional types or subtypes beyond the nascent theoretical ones offered here, especially if additional dimensions were added to the analysis, such as intensity of adoption/resistance. Future work could test the relationship between greater intensity of resistance and increased likelihood of observing alternative holiday variants. Categorization of non-adoption rationales would seem likely to generate additional subtypes or dimensions. Ultimately, some holidays might be more similar than others in terms of their typologies, which would potentially hint at some generalization across holidays at the micro-level. Thanksgiving, Valentine’s Day, and Columbus Day might prove initially insightful given the level of resistance noted to either the initial historical event commemorated (colonization in the origins of Thanksgiving and Columbus Day) or their underlying assumptions about commercialization, specific types of love, and gender roles (Valentine’s Day). As an anti-festival that welcomes the temporary cessation of certain norms, we might speculate that Halloween may deserve special attention.

Future studies could also reveal how small groups negotiate their joint observances. For instance, whose customization “profile” carries more weight in decision-making from one year to the next? For example, if the celebration is to occur at a private home, who will play host to the event? Who will be responsible for meal planning and other activities? Which characteristics may shape power gradients that affect joint holiday expressions? How do different approaches to joint planning shape holiday satisfaction levels or feelings of exclusion or not being sufficiently heard? Do the customization dynamics differ in small groups outside families, such as with friends?

Finally, are there connections between micro-level customization decisions and changes in holidays over time at the community and societal levels? Is there a critical mass of individuals or small groups that, once reached, can wield collective power to reframe holidays even if they are not organized for social change in any formal capacity? Or is it less about numerical strength and more about the influence of one or more key players (especially in the age of social media)? How can individual or family resistance be linked with organized forms of resistance, which could mobilize to effectuate social change more directly, including for greater access to - and enjoyment of - holiday experiences?

In summary, there are numerous directions—both empirical and theoretical—that could be explored to extend our limited knowledge concerning agency and nonconformity with respect to holidays. Such research would have the potential to both broaden and deepen understandings about how customized meanings and practices are attached to holiday observance, as well as the resulting implications for individuals, small groups, communities, societies, and the future of holidays.