Writing Blog Number 2

20250106 Using Holidays In Writing

Using Holidays In Writing

We have just finished the Christmas holiday break, or Hanukkah or whatever other celebration there is. You could also add Easter, then the country-specific celebrations – July 4, ANZAC Day, bank holidays, etc. – and you have quite the list of different holidays.
         So, let’s use them in our writing!
         That is perfectly fine, but the writer must be aware of a few things…

One – cultural elements
If you are writing for a very niche market, this can be ignored. But, more and more, the world is becoming interconnected, and so my talking about ANZAC day will confuse USians, and people like my son’s friends have no idea why USians celebrate July 4 (at least one thinks it’s just your equivalent of Guy Fawkes and think someone blew up your government or something). Even a universal celebration like Easter has cultural differences. Australians have an Easter bilby, and we tend not to go to church, for example. Christmas for Australians is about heat and sport.
         What this means for a writer is that you may have to put in some notes of explanation so that every reader knows where you are coming from.

Two – expectations
Readers will have some sort of expectations if a holiday features prominently. This means Christmas has presents and an element of family, Easter has some form of chocolate or spring/autumn. Shops will be closed on a lot of holidays; emergency services will be stretched. The elements of a lot of these holidays are almost universal, and that expectation will be there in a reader straight away.
         For example, Die Hard is the source of argument over whether it’s a Christmas film. It is. Why? Because it could only happen at Christmas. There is an element of a man and a strained family life. There is a party where the employees gather near the end of the year. The streets are quiet because nothing else is open. The emergency services are struggling to cope. No-one is available to help. For all of this to be happening and it to make sense – Christmas time is the only time it could be happening. Therefore – Christmas movie!

Three – time setting
The joy of a holiday is that it can set the time of the year without having to be explicit about it. Even mentioning at some point that “Christmas was two weeks ago,” or, “They were getting ready for the next week’s Thanksgiving gathering,” gives a reason for things to be happening and sets a time in the year without having to say, “It was January the seventh.” And presents they get can even tell the reader the year. “We got a tamagotchi,” says mid-1990s. “We got a Playstation 3,” says mid-2000s. “We got a Nintendo Switch,” says last year.

Four – selling work
This is a little bit away from the content of a story, but the sheer volume of anthologies asking for Christmas, Easter, July 4 and Thanksgiving stories every year has not diminished in over a decade. I’ve been in 3 Christmas anthologies, for example. So having an overt setting of a specific holiday could well increase your chance of a sale, especially short story or poem.

So, utilising holidays can be fraught with danger, but can also be quite rewarding and give your story a unique sort of element.

Good luck!