Elanites celebrate numerous holidays, some dating all the way back to the Three Kingdoms. Although the Church takes part in most of these holidays to some extent or another, every occasion has significance among the secular population. As time has passed, some holidays have taken on different significance, but many Elanites see them as an opportunity to celebrate togetherness and the passage of time.
February: Manythanks
March: Seedtide
May: Crownfall Day
June: Suntide
July: Zell’s Mass
September: Culltide
October: Torqua
November: Darkened Day
Early December: Snowtide
Mid-December: Solemn Remembrance
End of December: Yearsend
The Turning-days mark the turn from one season to the next, and are generally celebrated over weekends at the start of every season. Most were started back during the serfdom period as so much depended on the agrarian calendar. It is important to note that while the Church has tied meaning to each of these holidays, they are still considered secular by Elanites and celebrated either with or without religious context.
Seedtide is celebrated in the middle of March. Once marking the new year, as it was considered the end of Winter, Seedtide is the beginning of the spring planting season. To Elanites it is a celebration of new beginnings. Around this time, new houses are built, new jobs are taken, adoptions are made, coming-of-age ceremonies are held, and many weddings are performed. The Church encourages forgiving past wrongs during Seedtide, and the High Church ties it to the triumph of Mercy.
Suntide is celebrated at the start of June to celebrate the coming of summer, and is tied to the outdoors and celebrating beauty in all forms. Bright colors are worn by all, with many also donning face paint. Picnics and garden parties are held in pastoral settings and roses in particular are a favored gift between friends and lovers. People read poetry, sing songs, and make wreaths and bouquets. Suntide is also seen as the beginning of the courting season, so many dances and couples’ activities are held. The Church engages in Suntide by encouraging people to acts of kindness and compassion, the High Church speaking to the triumph of Duty.
Culltide is celebrated at the start of September, and is a harvest festival. Paper boats inscribed with wishes of a bountiful harvest are placed in rivers and lakes, and the end of the weekend is celebrated with a grand feast where each participant contributes, either by cooking, providing ingredients, or even cleaning up afterward. This feast traditionally includes pot pies as a symbol of bounty being unearthed. Some hosts even hide coins in the pies in order for the one who finds it to be given good luck during the months before winter. The Church encourages people to invite strangers and the less-fortunate to their table. To the High Church, there is great import placed in using this holiday to reflect acts of the triumph of Charity.
Snowtide is celebrated at the start of December, and celebrates togetherness of the family and household. Many people choose to bunk up inside, having quiet celebrations with lots of singing, acting out funny plays, and hot tea, soup, and bread. Since this is a time where illness often spreads in Elan, some suspect that this holiday was once a time of guarding the health of oneself and loved ones. This time of the year is also regarded by many as the part of the year where the dead are nearest, and many households take an opportunity to celebrate and wish blessings and hope to those who have passed on. The Church takes part in memorial services and guided reflections on working through the hardship and loss of the year. The High Church uses it to celebrate the triumph of Hope and asks its believers to hope for things not just to get them through the winter but to pray on behalf of the fulfillment of the hopes of others.
Held in mid-February, Manythanks is a holiday that arose fairly recently as a way to break up the end-of-winter doldrums. People are encouraged to give gifts to one another, preferably something beautiful that can bring happiness while they await the return of brighter days. Pressed or preserved flowers, feathers, and ribbons are especially popular. Also common are cards to loved ones, often plain in appearance but filled with words of appreciation, encouragement, and love. Although some see companies’ involvement with the holiday through sales promotions and sponsorships to be against the spirit of the event, it certainly aids people in finding presents. The proper way to accept any gift is in the name: lock eyes with total kindness, and tell the giver “Many thanks!”
Crownfall Day, celebrated in late April to early May, is a day intended to celebrate the fall of the Kingdom of Elan in 1766. It takes place on the day that the last member of the royal family was beheaded. Many tributes to the nation occur during this period, such as parades and the celebrations of veterans and those still in the armed forces. During this weekend, authority is inverted, with local leaders taking the role of a fool and children taking charge, often making joke rulings and enacting silly laws to last the weekend - “criminals” are subject to “punishments” like pies to the face or having water dumped on them. Sometimes fake crowns are distributed and childish games are often played.
Torqua marks a time of great transition and turning in Elan. During this festival, which could last a night or a week depending on those celebrating, people would put on their finest clothes and don masks or wear elaborate costumes as a way to step away from their summer selves and coming winter hardships and prepare their minds and hearts for the change in weather and duty. Once it was meant as a way to banish one self and mark the creation of another, so the best clothes were worn and great feats of strength or skill were performed. Many still hold the belief that Torqua is meant to be when many can visibly show (sometimes with great exaggeration) what they hope most to be during the winter so that it gives them strength in the coming months. Nowadays, Torqua is filled with costume balls and masquerades as a way to celebrate the end of the harvest as well as offer everyone involved a chance to let go of their inhibitions for a night (or however long the period of parties last), and allow themselves experiences they may not normally be capable of having.
At the time when the sun is creeping away, Elanites have created a celebration of lights. Darkened Day started in the 1840s in Wyllish, Gaulden, and Huxlian labor circles as a rejection of industrialization. Then in the 1860s, as it spread across the country, was a celebration of the working class struggles in the modern age. Now it has been co-opted by fashionable circles in some of the upper class (mostly those of new money instead of ancestral wealth), which has dulled its original meaning. It is a night in the middle of November where gatherings are lit only by lanterns, candles, or fires. All other lights are rejected in order to celebrate the illuminations of the past and the times before. Gifts are exchanged and traditionally people show off the talents they are most thankful for - poetry, songs, cooking, baking, and other such hand crafts. Many workers once chose (and few may still choose) Darkened Day as a day of protests, labor strikes, and walk-outs, but the more popular it becomes, the less power it now has as a holiday of social protest.
The end of the Elanite year matches is celebrated at the end of December into the beginning of January, usually lasting a full week. As Seedtide is a time of beginnings, Yearsend is a time of conclusions - people often begin the process of preparing for the life changes at Yearsend with the intent to actualize them on Seedtide. Many who feel they have become dependent on something choose Yearsend as a time to quit such a vice. Additionally, those who are sick are often given great care during this time but any who can, making those in the medical field especially revered during this time. The Church pushes people to believe in themselves and the strength they have from the self and the community, which the High Church chooses to teach through the triumph of Valor. On the stroke of midnight of December 31st, tradition is to run outside and ring a bell, blow a horn, or shout a cheer to close the year with a bang.
This holiday is specially held by the Church in mid-July, intended to celebrate the first Shepherd themself. Local Shepherds tell the tale of Zell’s wanderings and teachings, ending with the Deathbed Contemplation and asking congregations how each of them have embodied the teachings of Zell. The High Church especially recites the meanings of the Nine Triumphs and leads guided reflections on how members of the community have themselves embodied them. It is a time of rededication to faith, mindfulness of self, and love for community.
On the longest night of the year, the High and Low Church gather together across Elan to honor the dead at a service called, the Solemn Remembrance. The service lasts from sundown to sunup, with parishioners remaining in the church throughout the service. The service begins with the community naming and praying for members of the community who have passed away in the previous year. Once the annual remembrance is completed, the Shepherd directs the flock to pray for the dead that they know, regardless of when they were lost. Once it reaches midnight, the Shepherd then directs the flock to pray for the dead who have been forgotten and still wander through the afterlife. These prayers are continued until the dawn comes, at which point the flock sing songs to welcome in the new day and usher those souls who are ready to be accepted by God. While the Low Church tends to focus more on the significance of the community’s ties to the ones lost, the High Church tends to put more emphasis on the power that the prayers have in shortening the wandering of the dead.