Why Becoming America’s Favorite Holiday?

It’s Halloween in the usa, and there is a lot of excitement up. What exactly are your plans for that evening? Me, I’m going to be home, waiting to hand out candy to the young trick-or-treaters who drop by within their cute little costumes. And between rings from the doorbell, I’m going to be watching my personal favorite Halloween ghost movie: Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol.”

You may recall that “A Christmas Carol” is indeed a ghost story… but I’ll bet most people watch the movie limited to The holiday season. I favor to make use of the film to remind myself to keep Halloween in its proper place – as a fun, spooky holiday for kids – and also to keep Christmas on top as the most popular holiday.

I understand I’m bucking the popularity, here. Halloween is fast eclipsing Christmas as America’s favorite holiday, whether it hasn’t already done this. Recent economic reports say U.S. retailers are bracing to have an off-year for Christmas spending… but have hoped to become “saved” by unprecedented spending on Halloween this fall.

If you look around at the society by which we live, you can observe the year-round celebration of Halloween, in which a generation ago you might’ve seen more year-round observance of Christmas. Let alone that Halloween began as “All Hallows Evening,” later shortened to “Hallow Even” and eventually “Hallowe’en.” November First, “All Saints Day,” would be a church holiday, meant to fete the Christian saints who’d passed away… and all sorts of Hallows Eve preceded it, the night time before, as a solemn religious observance. But within the generations, at least within the U.S., Halloween originates to become about spookiness, fear, as well as death. And now, be it the rise of movies and shows like “Twilight” and “Buffy” or the themes found in the most widely used books and music, the spooky seems to be much more popular than the inspiring nowadays.

There’ve been scary movies and slasher flicks provided there’ve been movies whatsoever. The first Dracula silent movies were popular, as happen to be other horror flicks from “The Exorcist” to “The Blair Witch Project” and every cinematic blood-bath between. But scary movies was previously a little more seasonal than they are nowadays. The truly inspiring movies – particularly if there’s any hint of Christianity in their scripts – seem to have dropped off, more than a bit. And Hollywood – as well as TV producers and book publishers – can’t crank out slashers fast enough.

People my folks’ age loved “It’s An excellent Life” and “Miracle On 34th Street.” People my kids’ age love “Interview Using the Vampire” and “The Nightmare Before Christmas.” And I find the cultural trend a little disturbing. In the end, Christmas is all about birth… Halloween’s about death. Christmas is hope… Haloween is fear. Christmas is about celebrating the appearance of mankind’s savior, contributing to the promise of blissful eternal life… the “Halloween generation” does appear to believe in eternal life, only for vampires, and just the kind of endless existence that doesn’t seem much like life whatsoever – and certainly doesn’t sound very happy.

Even the way we encourage our kids to celebrate these holidays has tilted more toward Halloween’s kind of “spirit.” After i was a kid, Halloween was about fleecing the neighborhood as much candy as possible, after which getting a way to jam it down my gullet before my folks could intercept it (ostensibly for reasons of my health, but probably for reasons that belongs to them sweet-tooth cravings). Christmas was at least to some degree about giving gifts… but increasingly, kids seem to view it like a time for you to receive, just like Halloween.

You used to get that which you wanted for Christmas by, at least nominally, “being good.” But you got that which you wanted for Halloween by looking bad, and threatening to do bad things. Think about it: which attitude appears to prevail within the society by which we now live – the main one run by all those greedy little trick-or-treaters who was raised and got place in charge?

I’d rather not overstate this – I am not against Halloween. I’m getting excited about seeing a chuckle little costumes today, and that i do enjoy spooky movies. I’m just worried that, like a society, we are leaning toward doing more honor to death and dread rather than life and love. It’s like America’s been inside a bad, depressed mood for a few years, and our traditional optimism is embracing pessimism. You may still find optimists out there, to be sure: the courageous still think it is by themselves to begin a business, or do volunteer work, or risk their capital to create jobs for others (and also to build lasting wealth for themselves and for those around them). I’m certainly aware of the volunteers who’re running the enjoyment haunted houses for kids at schools and fire stations in my community and yours today.

All I’m saying is that those volunteers are operating more from something like a “Christmas Spirit” than from the kind of motivations that drive young adults to pay for new homage to the themes of a meaner kind of Halloween these days. So I’ll keep bucking the trend. I’ll keep my optimism, keep my candy-doling generosity, keep my kid-loving sense of holiday joy. And, by Dickens, I’ll keep Halloween in its place – it’s just a warm-up act for a joyous holidays, with the main event arriving a couple of months.

In “Constraints to Leisure,” Edgar L. Jackson and David Scott provide an overview of the field of leisure constraints research as of the late 1990s. They explain that originally researchers in the field studies that which was then called “barriers to recreation participation,” however the word “barriers” describes what’s now considered only one type of constraint – something which intervenes or prevents one from taking part in a task. However other kinds of constraints are recognized, including one’s interpersonal and intrapersonal influences, which lead one to not be a part of leisure. In, Jackson and Scott explain that the word “leisure” can be used rather than just recreation, as it is a far more inclusive term, and also the word “participation” seemed to be dropped, since leisure research doesn’t only involve whether a persona participates, but what they prefer to do, where, and such a particular type of leisure way to them.

Jackson and Scott also discuss the 3 major methods for looking at leisure which have evolved since the leisure constraints approach began in the 1800s. It began with considerations of “barriers to recreation participation and leisure enjoyment” based on the assumption that the real picture to deal with was service delivery, to ensure that people would participate more if there have been more services provided.

Then, starting in the 1960s, the focus now use taking a look at how particular barriers might modify the participation by people with different economic and social characteristics. Later, in the 1980s, the notion of constraints emerged, and the researchers realized that these constraints may not simply be external, for example as a facility or service, but could be internal, such as a constraint due to psychological and economic factors, or to social or interpersonal factors, like a person’s relationships together with his or her spouse or family.

Because the late 1980s, it would seem that three major concepts about the constraints affecting involvement in leisure activities are located, as described inside a model proposed by Crawford and Godbey later.

1) The structural or intervening constraint is one which affects someone from taking part in some type of leisure, once the person already has indicated a preference for or desire to participate. As conceptualized by Crawford and Godbey, these structural or intervening constraints are “those factors that intervene between leisure preference and participation.” (p. 307). Research according to this conception of a constraint generally involves carrying out a survey to recognize the particular items standing in the clear way of participation, such as time, costs, facilities, knowledge of the service or facility, insufficient someone for participation (like a partner to participate inside a doubles tennis match), along with a lack of skills or perhaps a disability. The assumption underlying this method is that an individual would take part in any activity if not for these constraints, which seem similar to the barriers conceived of when that term was in use. In looking for patterns and commonalities, using various quantitative methods for example factor analysis and cluster analysis, researchers found support for certain common structural and intervening constraints, especially: “time commitments, costs, facilities and opportunities, skills and abilities, and transportation and access.” Additionally, the researchers sought to check out how different groups in society were constrained in different ways, for example women, or groups based on age and income, eventually leading researchers to identify that most constraints are experienced to a greater or lesser degree depending on personal and situational factors.

2) An intrapersonal constraint is really a psychological state or characteristic which affects leisure preferences, rather than serving as a barrier to participation once a person has already developed those preferences. For instance, intrapersonal constraints which might lead a person not to develop particular leisure preferences might be that person’s “abilities, personality needs, prior socialization, and perceived reference group attitudes.”

3) An interpersonal constraint is a which occurs due to one’s interaction with one’s peers, family members, and others, leading someone to think about certain leisure activities, places, or services as relevant or not relevant leisure activities to sign up in. For example, based on one’s understandings from getting together with others one might consider certain types of leisure to be inappropriate, uninteresting, or unavailable.

Although a hierarchical model was proposed by D.W. Crawford, E. L. Jackson, an G. Godbey to combine these three concepts into a single model, based on one first forming leisure preferences around the intrapersonal level, then encountering constraints around the interpersonal level, and lastly encountering structural or intervening constraints, it would seem there isn’t any such sequential ordering of these constraints. Rather they appear to do something together in varying ways and orders, though Henderson and other scientific study has sought to combine intrapersonal and interpersonal constraints together being antecedent constraints.

Whether such antecedents constraints exist or not, another way to take a look at whether people participate in a leisure experience in line with the way they react to a perceived constraint. If they participate and want to participate, that would be described as a “successful proactive response.” If they don’t participate though they would like to do so, that would be considered a “reactive response.” Finally, when they participate however in a different way, that might be known as a “partly successful proactive response.”

A great instance of this reaction to a constraint approach may well be a mountain climber who suffers a disability. The climber who gets a prosthetic and climbs the mountain himself might be considered to become showing a “successful proactive response.” The climber who decides to abandon the activity might be considered to become showing a “reactive response.” Finally the climber who is helped to climb the mountain by a team of other climbers might be considered to be engaging in a “partly successful proactive response.”

These ideas about constraints may be applied to how individuals get involved with a few of the activities I have organized through several Meetup groups I run. These include an occasional Video Potluck Night, where people come to my house to determine videos that we get at Blockbuster; feedback/discussion groups for indie film producers and directors, which might be considered a kind of leisure, because most attendees are creating and directing films throughout their free time, often free of charge, and they’ve other paying jobs; and several teleseminars on writing, publishing, and promoting books, also is much more of a spare time activity for participants, given that they aspire to get books published, but have other jobs.

Structurally, some individuals who might attend these Meetup groups may be constrained due to the common structural problems that have been identified, including time commitments, costs, facilities and opportunities, skills and talents, and transportation and access. Many people can’t attend these activities, because they have another event to visit in those days or they may have extra work to complete, so they can’t spare the time to attend. Though there isn’t any cost for the meetings, some people might be constrained by the cost of dealing with the house, including the gas and toll from Bay area, Marin, or the Peninsula, and also the price of contributing something to the potluck (which many people have to buy because they do not possess the time for you to make something).

Another constraint is the fact that some people may be uncomfortable about likely to a celebration in a private house. Some may not attend the discussion groups or teleseminars, simply because they feel their skills are not yet right, although they hope someday to become a produce and director or finish their book. Some might not attend because they have problems with access, since they have trouble dealing with the house if they do not have a car, because they have problems getting there by bus or BART (that are 1-3 miles from the house respectively), plus they can’t obtain a ride. And when someone includes a serious disability, they will have trouble getting into the house, which is not wheelchair accessible.

The intrapersonal constraint will come into play when some people decide to not come simply because they feel uncomfortable in large groups or meeting new people, such as to the Video Potlucks, since these not just involve socializing prior to the film over dinner but then sharing during introductions as well as in a discussion of the film following the showing. Others may not come simply because they fear opening up and showing the work they’ve done given that they fear criticism.