Celebrations are times of renewal and affirmation of community. My great guru Shakespeare taught me that through his romantic comedies As You Like It and Twelfth Night.

Shakespeare believed in fun and festivity and of course in love. In Twelfth Night which is actually the last day of the Christmas season before the onset of Lent (period of abstinence, austerity), there is a character named Malvolio. Names in Renaissance comedy imply a person's nature--thus the prefix 'mal' suggests that Malvolio is not nice. He is serious, over-ambitious, vain and also very austere.

Shakespeare did not like austerity. I mean, that is what I think. That is why he makes the self-indulgent and carnivalesque people win in TN. Malvolio comes after them because they were eating and drinking and dancing late into the night. When he asks them, "My masters, are you mad?', Sir Toby (carnivalesque character) tells him, 'Because thou art serious will there be no cakes and ale?' This means that seriousness should not undercut fun and festivity.