[rollei_list] Re: Thanksgiving
- From: "Sam B. Anson" <sam.anson@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "rollei_list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <rollei_list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 28 Nov 2011 21:13:13 +0000
Emmanuel's comments and concerns about "importing" yet another worthless
American custom, Halloween, are well founded. It will contribute nothing the
social fabric of France.
Back in the day when I was a kid it was a low key, non - commercial event for
children Now it has been exploited and commercialized into civic holiday with
significant revenue potential for merchants, bars, etc. I think it runs third
to Christmas and "Black Friday" as a shopping day for the mindless consumption
of Chinese imports that are discarded in two or three weeks.
How did Halloween get out of control?
Sam Anson, NJ
From: rollei_list-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [rollei_list-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] on
behalf of Emmanuel Bigler [Emmanuel.Bigler@xxxxxxxx]
Sent: Thursday, November 24, 2011 3:23 AM
To: rollei_list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [rollei_list] Re: Thanksgiving
From Marc James Small:
> This Thursday marks ... Thanksgiving.
Happy Thanksgiving to our overseas friends !
> This is a survival of the older Feast of Harvest Home, celebrated in
> Europe in the third weekend in September. (The Canadians have a
> unique celebration.)
Strange to admit that I do not find in my family education, family
memories or secondary school lectures any sign of any remembrance of
this harvest feast in France at the end of September. May be because
my family (like the majority of French families in the XXI-st century)
is living far from country life since 2 or 3 generations. An
interesting and puzzling point of European history, actually.
The remembrance of France as a strong agricultural country, however,
is still there with our unusual long summer school holidays, 2 full
months, July and August. When the French Republic, in the last decades
of the XIX-st century, established the Public Education System, the
goal for our Republicans was to extract all children from the "bad"
influence of the Roman Catholic Church, this influence being stronger
in villages than in towns. So the Republic had to make a compromise
with country life, otherwise families would have opposed against the
Republican education system: regulations _had_ to allow all children
to be free from shool obligations in summer, in order to help
harvesting and other work in the fields in July and August.
-------------------
Regarding other Northern American ... should I say: celebrations?, not
at all connected to Thanksgiving.
There has been an attempt to introduce Halloween in France, I should
say: a _commercial_ attempt to introduce Halloween, with tons of usual
stuff, pumpkins, witches & other "derivated products" that we usually
expect to come with some Hollywood blockbusters (today,, Tintin is
coming back to Europe as a derivated product ....)
The problem for Halloween in France: there was a severe conflict, at
least in European countries with strong Roman Catholic roots, with the
celebration of All Saints Day (1-st of November), and November 2-nd,
the day when we remember the deceased members of our family.
No need to mention the opinion of the French Roman Catholic hierarchy
regarding Halloween, but the Roman Catholic Church (since the formal
separation between all religions and the French Republic in 1905) has
actually lost a great deal of its influence on the public's opinion.
Simply, people did not follow this "new" celebration, "imported from
abroad", be they members of any church, true believers or not, or
simply uncompromising agnostics, this last catgory being probably the
most ironic regarding pumpkins & witches !!!
--------------------------------------
> Shucks, I may even go to church tomorrow.
"Thou Shalt Not Serve Two Masters, the Lord and the Rollei."
--
Emmanuel
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