Holidays Are Always a Time

Holidays are always a time of personal reflection. Every year, my extended family observes the same traditions, and this makes us remember the previous year, and all of the years before. However, every holiday is slightly different. People move away, older relatives pass on, and younger relatives get older. Every year I am a little older as well, and looking back upon my previous holidays with my family, I always gain a sense of perspective on how much I have changed. and, unfortunately, every year seems to grow a bit more nerve-wracking in terms of how the holiday should be celebrated. Although people have always complained that holidays have become too commercialized, it seems this has become the case even more so than when I was a young child. While I still love holidays, I think people need to stop looking at the media to tell them what a 'perfect' holiday should resemble, and instead try to make the holiday meaningful and personal without so much anxiety.

A began to think about this when I saw Halloween paraphernalia in the stores, sometime around the time of August. The young trick-or-treaters I observed wandering around wore carefully designed clothing, rather than the imaginatively assembled costumes of my friends during our early childhood. Of course, the curfews were strictly enforced. All of the new trick-or-treaters were accompanied by adults. These parental figures, I am sure, were there to carefully sift through the small pile of candy to eliminate anything unwrapped, too sticky for braces, or perhaps even possessing a grain or two of sugar. While I am not advocating a total disregard for life and limb, it seems as if something has been lost from this holiday. What I loved about the holiday the most was the sense of release, of running around the neighborhood wild and free, not caring how I looked, defying adult rules about the right way to behave and eat for one previous day. Today, parents are reared on sensationalist news stories that warn them of the dire consequences of what can happen to their children if they look away for a moment. A holiday of fun and childish pranks has become carefully controlled and beautified for the adult eye. Now, stores tell kids how to look, what to buy, and parents are told how they must behave as parents to feel as if they are doing 'the right thing.'

Thanksgiving has also become more of a source of tension than a time of relaxed family togetherness. The family bird has grown larger and larger over the years, in an effort to outdo the last year's feast. Everyone is trying to find impress everyone else with the recipe found in the most current fashionable cooking magazine. Everyone worries about people not having a good time, not liking what is prepared, about potential fighting, and how to navigate an increasingly complex array of step-parents and step-children. Almost before it has begun, the family is concerned about how the holiday will be remembered in a photo album, rather than simply enjoying the day.

Afterwards, the feasters stare at the screen to watch mediocre football games, perhaps because it is easier than talking with one another for too long, for fear of offending someone's sensibilities. The idea that a holiday is supposed to be a day off from work seems to be lost after the hostess as been cooking a turkey since 5am, and relatives had to slog through hours of traffic or long lines at airport security. Why not just approach the table as any other meal, but with more family members, than try to assemble the perfect sage-stuffed, wine-paired Thanksgiving?

Of course, the other major holidays seem like a mere lead-up to Christmas and Chanukah. The masses are in a desperate frenzy while searching for the perfect gift. A hapless shopper finally falls into a tear-stained muddle at the cash register, as she buys a generic pair of slippers for her father, since she was unable to find a tennis racket from his favorite manufacturer. People, spurred on by the consumption encouraged by advertising buy gifts strangers, from the mailperson to their garbage man. The idea of shopping as a sales-driven 'sport' is reinforced by the creation of pseudo-holidays like 'Black Friday' or 'Cyber Monday' where the amount of people heading to the malls for discounts, or online to find great sales, has become a required cultural right of passage. How many Christmas gifts are really memorable? Maybe the longed-for bicycle (or iPod) for a child, but once someone gets a bit older, what is really remembered is the time spent with family, and the gifts are eventually packed away into the attic.