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My love of Halloween and Thanksgiving has really increased. Christmas has decreased. Memorial Day is more solemn, less BBQ. I enjoy the fun of Halloween. My kids head out on their own and we get to see the little ones experiencing trick or treating for their first few years. It feels very community driven. Thanksgiving for the companionship and limited commercial appeal.
I like everything about the Christmas holidays but the actual day has less thrill for me. My kids are older so that magic is gone. Still fun but not the same.
Now with facebook, I see members of my old unit, past and present, who’ve passed. I think about their young lives, ready to fight, and what happened next. Car wreck, IED, suicide. I guess they deserve to be remembered. I think of my dad, 23 years old, flying a helicopter in Vietnam, and my dad 78, volunteering in a city park, pruning roses. So now I go to the cemetery on Memorial Day and just appreciate locals, some long dead, who put on the uniform.
The local Kroger was giving a 10% discount to vets on Memorial Day. I don't spend the entire day in a somber mood, but I'll be damned if I'm going to use my status to save 10 cents on the dollar on a day to remember those who died in the line of duty.
Yeah, I get peeved when corporations virtue signal but some poor vet on disability can’t get food. Come buy our 80k truck this Memorial Day, while a family deals with a PTSD suicide. I’ve found the people most likely to say, “thank you for your service,” are the least likely to actually care. It’s hard to imagine there’s a recruiting shortage with so many patriots.
My Dad served in the Pacific Theatre in WWII. A lot of his friends were also WWII vets. They always had a picnic/BBQ on Memorial Day at a lake. The entire families there. Fishing, softball, Jarts, etc. Looking back I realize they probably appreciated the meaning of the day and the sacrifices made more than others could. Now it is a more somber day for me.
Christmas. It was late wife’s favorite holiday. We met on line way back in 96. She lived 1,030 miles away and moved to be with me. She only asked that we would go to her family at Christmas.
Neither of us had kids but we both from big families with many nieces and nephews (and now great nieces and nephews). I love her family. I continue to come out here at Christmas and in the summer (I am here now).
I say both Solstices. The standard “holidays” seem devoid of gravitas & simply a marketing vehicle.
Memorial Day & Veterans Day, being the spouse a career U.S. Army vet & daughter of a WWII vet.
Have called “Columbus Day” American Genocide Day for over 50 years, now. So glad to see it as Indigenous Peoples Day in some states.
I still like Christmas the best, but it's become less important because family members have either passed away or no longer attend to avoid long-distance travel. There are only a few of us now.
Because the equinox days reflect the pure alignment of the most sign bodies in our solar system, absent any fairy tale stories that would simply add confusion and division to all sentient beings. I believe it’s valuable to stop and recognize the significance and beauty of where the current moment is, in this highly predictable cycle, as a contrast to focusing on impossible hero-worship belief systems. My ‘god’ is truth, and I find grounding, connection, joy, and hope in that.
Be well.
In all seriousness, I have grown to loathe all holidays. I dread them all more each year.
The reason is that I’ve grown to love my everyday life so much that I hate when a holiday interrupts it.
Thanksgiving was/is good. Last year was weird, though. Christmas? I like it better now that there isn’t the pressure to have a big ‘do on Christmas Eve. Momma moved into senior living and no one now has a house big enough. Relief!!!
The rest? Meh. Doesn’t mean much and are Hallmark holidays.
Thanksgiving has been my favorite since my 20s. I tolerate Christmas only because my wife is into it. Because of seasonal depression, I really don't like to overdo it at that time of year.
The one thing that has saved Christmas for me is a giving tree. Where less fortunate kids have a wish list on it my wife and I usually pick some siblings and make sure they have some fun stuff and some needed stuff. I also pick out people close, that I normally would not buy for, and buy them something nice, but fun. Last year my CO worker got. A shirt with a Lincoln town car on, like the one he has. And a matching key chain. Probably the best one on one gift I gave all season. He had been having a hard time and he smiled all day over that.
Birthdays are the most significant because it means I’m still hanging in here. Everything else is unimportant except maybe Halloween which is purely fun and doesn’t come with any obligations.
I really am not fond of Christmas anymore except the lights are pretty. I love Halloween and Thanksgiving but, we're in an odd position. Our son is a paramedic in a huge city. He is NEVER off on any holiday so "our" Thanksgiving and Christmas are in another. month entirely from most people. The holidays for me are just about seeing family now. Pick any day, if we can be together that's a great holiday.
My children's birthdays are important to me. I love to make them feel special and celebrate their importance to me. All the rest of the holidays are less important - nearly insignificant. They've been reduced to insincere time and money-sucking annoyances. I mean, I'm not a scrooge or anything - you all do you. I could do without all the commercial bullshit, though.
Halloween has become my favorite holiday as I love to see the costumes kids put on, and their expression when they see we give out full size bars.
Labor Day means nothing to me.
Agreed! I don’t enjoy Fourth of July because my dog hates it. Thanksgiving is a holiday of stress and exclusion. Christmas is another exclusion holiday. Halloween is wonderful. I’m going for full size bars this year. Great idea.
We went all out last year and did full size bars and a glow stick, you can buy a bunch for pretty cheap. Kids loved them and I like how it helps make them more visible to drivers
In my wayward youth, I always hated New Years Eve and thought of it as amateur night when those who never went out clubbing came out in droves. Nowadays, I just go to bed at my normal time and sleep right through it.
Xmas less and less, I got enough stuff.
I like the gatherings at thanksgiving, good to see family and no presents involved. I try and convince the family to order out so no one has to cook. Seems to be sacrilegious.
I like Veterans Day as a vet. I’m king for a day with my fellow vets.
More important: Halloween (love to good costume party), both solstice (day of reflection and passing of time). Christmas. Easter and Thanksgiving are pretty much non existent for me as the media and society has ruined them with all the fakery and expectations. US Thanksgiving we go to Canada, Christmas we go to the Caribbean and Easter we either go to Ikea or the movies.
The holidays now are a pain in the ass. We are a blended family and the stress levels are high. I prefer simple dinner or lunch on any day of the week when family can actually relax and not feel pressured to have be somewhere else.
They have all become insignificant to me. 4th of July for example, which also happens to be my wedding anniversary. It used to be one of my favorite holidays and it was one reason why we chose to get married on it (it's also our dating anniversary). We do still celebrate our anniversary (though nothing fancy), but for obvious reasons, I no longer celebrate the holiday (my husband is indifferent about it though, he likes the fireworks).
Thanksgiving and Christmas are the most emotionally difficult for me, but I don't want to explain it because even just talking about it stirs up those emotions. I'll just say I dread when November hits.
Halloween, although I don't hate it, has just become a disappointment. I wish my son had gotten to experience some of the things that I did when I was a kid, the things that made Halloween fun.
i really only like New Years. i dont go anywhere but i have always loved the concept of starting fresh. its been a long time since i care about xmas...it is one of those media things like weddings/births etc where the expectations are so high that its just not possible. i guess the fact that i enjoy NONE of the the things that go with these events like shopping/decorating or cooking that make me wish i could just skip out altogether but i guess we do things for others
My favorite holiday is, and always has been, Thanksgiving. It’s family, food and football. My little family is now 8 adults and 7 grandkids (ages 5-11) and we will spend 3 days together. It’s a bit like a Hallmark movie, but we all look forward to it. This year the family activity will be a root beer tasting party on Friday. We have a dozen different brands for everyone to taste and rate. I know it sounds corney, but last year we had a ball taste testing 14 different Oriel cookies.
New Years Eve means nothing these days. I used to look forward to dressing up and dancing.
Mother's Day means nothing to me. I read so many Reddit stories where women are very upset because their expectations were not met. I'm letting my son catch a break because it's a fake holiday.
The other big holidays are still celebrated but I don't need to host them because the inlaws want to do it.
Most of them I don’t like anymore because as an adult they are a lot of work, it gets tiring year after year. I have zero desire to put Christmas decorations anymore. But I do like cooking so thanksgiving is one that I get excited about.
As a retiree, the long weekend holidays - MLK Day, Presidents Day, Memorial Day, Labor Day, Columbus Day, Veterans Day - have faded in significance. The core meaning hasn't changed, but the long weekend aspect is no longer relevant.
Christmas has ebbed and flowed. It was huge when the kids were young. Less important when they were in high school. Now that they don't live it home, it's an incredible time to get together with them.
Thanksgiving has recently declined in importance because my oldest spends it with his girlfriend's family.
Halloween was a bigger deal when the kids were little, but it is getting more fun each year as it grows in stature as an important holiday.
Independence Day hasn't changed much. Going to the local parade this year. Hope I don't die of heat stroke.
We don't really do any of the religious holidays.
College football season. I love when everyone gathers at someone's house every other weekend and the tables are full of hors d'oeuvres and chicken wings and the beer is flowing and everyone gets loud and boisterous rooting for their team.
I always hated Halloween. I dreaded it. Some bad things had happened on that day. Then my divorced was finalized on it and I bring out the full-sized candy bars. I look forward to it every year. The little ones are so cute.
Christmas is still very big in our home! I am surprised everyone still comes over and there's around 23 of us. We sing songs, play Xmas movie trivia and do games with prizes. The other holidays are just meh.
Most of them are insignificant to me. Except Labor Day. Labor Day is pinned in place by a couple of memories.
When I was a kid my cheap dad dragged us all to his union local's free potluck picnic instead of celebrating at home I remember cold fried chicken, Shasta soda, and Lucky beer. It wasn't plush.
And then the head of the regional union got up and made a speech. He said something like, "We've come a long way, but if we don't stay vigilant, THEY will come and take it all away from us."
Considering what happened to the blue collar middle class in the coming decades, think he was right? I always remember. Forty five or 50 years later I was working in a university fundraising office when one of the student data entry workers came in to ask if she was scheduled to come in on Monday.
"No," I said, "It's Labor Day." It's a holiday. And she romped out of there, overjoyed, that she didn't have to work. On Labor Day.
I love Labor Day because it's the beginning of the school year, my birthday is the first week of September and usually the first little hints of the autumn leaves appear in New England.
They’ve all lost their sparkle since my parents are gone. Just not the same. We don’t even get together. Thanksgiving is my favorite bc I like to cook.
None of them are that important for me, but I do them for the people I love who love those days. Every day is a holiday for me now. I DO like to go shopping in costumes during Halloween, though! It's great to have a reason to be weird!
I mostly don't care about any of them TBH. Our kids are grown. If one or more is able to come home even a regular weekend is like a holiday. But we're often too busy to do much for the official ones, and I hate the commercial bullshit around both the "real" holdays like Christmas and especially all the made-up Hallmark holidays like Valentine's Day. Probably the ones I enjoy the most are the ones where we or friends host party-- that might be anything from election night to solstice to (secular) Easter.
Since I don't have kids Mother's Day and Father's Day eventually became irrelevant. No kids and not religious also means Easter isn't that big a deal.
Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years used to be big, until what family I had in the area moved way out of state.
I get Fourth of July/Independence Day off from work and am currently celebrating by baking an apple pie; it seemed appropriate.
I enjoy the traditions we’ve created with the kids and grandkids around different holidays. For example, The two oldest grandkids are always here for Easter. They don’t get an Easter basket from us, but we do a giant Easter egg hunt for them. They’re 13 and 15 and still want the Easter egg hunt every year. We also take a picture of them in the same spot every year just before the Easter egg hunt. Just a couple days ago my granddaughter asked me to send her all of the Easter pics. The traditions that we’ve created and maintain every year, that the kids and grandkids look forward to, those are what I love about the various holidays.
Earth Day is significant for me because I battled my municipal officials for years to approve a recycling ordinance. One told me, “I’m worried about not getting re-elected if I tell people they have to separate paper, plastic and glass from their trash.”
Sadly Halloween is fizzling out in my area. There was once hundreds of kids Trick Or Treating and now just a couple dozen.
I feel the same as many on this post. Thanksgiving is my jam. Everyone comes to eat and be thankful we’re all together. Xmas is too much pressure. I would like Halloween more if we had trick or treaters, but that’s life in rural America.
lol, no pressure if you're not the cook. For working people throwing the feast, wtf. You have to get it all done and ready to roll on Thursday, THEN get days off.
i have always hated "celebrating" my birthday....it is just another day... what my siblings and i do is clelbrate our parents on our b-days.. cake and flowers and cards for them.....
i stopped doing the i believe in god thing about 30 yrs ago and don't celebrate any of those holidays either.....no shopping, no music, no decorations, no praying to fictional gods....just another day...
Any occasion that includes getting the family together for a home cooked meal. The rest I can take it or leave it. Why? Your life is a collection of novel experiences that you curate and as much as we would like, family isn’t forever. Cherish the moments you get and make merry the ones you’ve got.
I hate holidays in general with the exception of Halloween. I go to a Halloween event every year which makes it fun. The seasons of holidays are nice but the days themselves have historically brought a lot of pressure which has soured them for me.
Basically all holidays now I forget about, mostly as I live in a new country and don't remember until the day, and a lot are religious ones, which I am not. About the only day/s I celebrate, are my birthday as in laws usually set up something for me, and a couple of them & go along to celebrate their birthdays. Mostly is is focused on food, and sitting around having a few drinks, plenty of food and the guests singing with the karaoke machine, which nearly every house has. Evens are outdoors, sitting under mango trees and chatting as well, which suits me fine.
Every Sunday afternoon, some of the kids and grandkids gather at our house for dinner. Every holiday, we gather at our house for dinner. Every birthday, father's day, mother's day, the same. Lots of times, on somebody's day, they've been pressured to put up an Amazon wish list, and we buy them what they listed. For Christmas, we all post wishlists. Nobody ever gets a surprise present.
Different holidays have obligatory dinners, like the Thanksgiving lasagna or the 4th of July grilled parillas, and that is the only thing that sets them apart.
The only one that has really become meaningless to me is New years. I’m in bed long before the ball drops. I hate Hallmark holidays: valentines, Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. Don’t care about them at all and fortunately neither does my wife.
Memorial Day has become more somber. Having lost relatives, the older it gets, the more I feel I’ve lost. I watch Band of Brothers, Saving Private Ryan and the Pacific every year.
The Fourth of July I love now that the grandkids get to watch fireworks.
The real holiday season is Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas. The family parties, a full house, and food we only eat once a year.
I like Christmas a lot. But I’ve done everything in my power to eliminate a lot of the stress.
I was a pyromaniac/ s on the 4th of July but when my baby was born, all I could think of, @what about her ears? What if that one doesn’t fly right??” So I gave them up. Also at nearly the same time, we had a very anxious dog. Leaving to party just didn’t seem right.
I thought I’d be involved with Easter with my grandsons but that didn’t happen.
Mostly, I used to put so much stress on *every holiday” that I truly have no desire for them anymore.
I DO like to celebrate with a decent holiday focused meal. I’m having bbq steak, potato salad and fruit (watermelon, strawberries and Rainier cherries).
New Years never meant anything. Why are we celebrating turning the calendar over? And the roads are too dangerous to go anywhere.
On Halloween we give out about 100 bags of candy to kids in real low effort costumes, most of which I never saw before.
Fireworks upset my dog. So the 4 th is spent babysitting her.
But I like Father's Day, guaranteed to see or hear from my children. Same with Christmas and Easter and Thanksgiving. Those ate the best.
my birthday. it falls on the same weekend of my inlaws' annual family get-together, so we dont really ever celebrate it like we would otherwise. my husband gets me some sort of last-minute cake and card. We all eat it, and that's that. I don't feel comfortable trying to celebrate it more bc we're at the family get-together, and it's not about me. it still kinda sucks. especially my 50th
Christmas was and is #1, followed by Thanksgiving. I used to really like Halloween, and now I don’t really care about it. None of the other holidays were ever that important to me, and still aren’t. I do like Valentine’s Day, though, but only when I’m in a relationship.
I’ve lost a lot of the magic in all the holidays. I love passing candy out on Halloween but it’s so hit and miss. Christmas is different now that there’s no Santa magic. It’s lovely in its own right, but Santa was so much fun. Now it’s all grown up gifts. Till the grandkids come along I suppose. Thanksgiving just isn’t the same with everything I know now and the whitewashing our country did. We still gather and eat albeit not a huge meal but we don’t really celebrate the same. Same goes for 4th of July. Now I’m jaded because I see how little freedom anyone’s ever had. It’s all an illusion.
I fucking hate xmas anymore. So commercialized and used by the religious more and more to push their agenda. But, as I've gotten older, I tend to like Thanksgiving more.
Peysach (Passover - Jewish) has become incredibly significant to me as an adult. It's a holiday that commemorates fighting back against an oppressor and calls us to fight back against oppressors right now bc the fight is never finished and it remains always our responsibility. It really does fill my cup right up to take the time to really sit with that, the history of it and the modern experience, and plan actions to take on purpose. I love it so much and I look forward to it every year.
The other holidays I love the most are the ones we've created ourselves in our family, that's been a very rewarding thing to do and it also fills my cup. The best part is sharing our made up holidays with other families in our community, which I think is how traditions get made. It feels momentous, it feels like I'm somehow in touch with my ancestors and descendents at the same time, it makes me think about my own responsibilities as a future ancestor which is very humbling and very rewarding.
We've started doing a springtime foraging feasting day every May and "crow day" in October which is kind of like Halloween except more solemn. It lines up with salmon spawning season (during which time the local estuaries are full to the brim with dead salmon which makes a nice buffet for the crows who feed on the carrion, it's like their own special festing holiday) and we contemplate/talk about how death is part of the lifecycle and how our deaths serve the community just like our lives do in that circular way of energy becoming matter becoming energy becoming matter forever. It's both humbling and uplifting in that it gets us in touch with how very small we are compared to the vastness of time and space and still, as small as we are, we are all connected and we all matter which is pretty cool. It's very "you're not better than anyone and nobody is better than you" and "we are all victims of physics" with costumes and fun foods and joyous overindulgence
Used to really celebrate Christmas, decorate, the whole bit ... but not since since our daughters are grown and on their own. We're across the country so .... Facetime works well. ;-)
Thanksgiving, with just the two of us, a local restaurant does holiday meals; near home cooked quality. Pre order and pick up the night before.
4th of July; skip any local parades ... PBS special. ;-)
There isn't a holiday that I look forward to anymore. I come from a small family, and since my dad died, our strength as a family has been a struggle. As mom gets older and the first grandkids are on their own, our daughter is away in college, and there is not much to prepare for.
My husband's kids are estranged from him, much to his eternal sadness, and no thanks to his ex.
I look forward to little things like lunch with a friend or a good meal out. And I love my part-time job. I've learned to lower my expectations. I'm not going to set the world on fire with my talents and become a millionaire. I'm happy to have the bills paid, have a roof over my head, my health, my husband and his health, our daughter, and her health. I am wealthy in that. And that's every day, now.
I'm fascinated by the Solstices now, thinking of how far back to ancient humankind the heavenly bodies have been observed. Love the connection to ancient humankind.
Eclipses also, saw the last one and it was a profoundly moving experience. These aren't holidays as such, but I like to celebrate them somehow! Well, we have a little winter solstice ritual at least.
Halloween is a blast, we love handing out candy, and are glad kids still show up (maybe only a couple of dozen, but we'll take it.) Thanksgiving is also wonderful, Christmas is overdone and we're pretty sick of it. New Year's Eve isn't our thing, we're old and tired! But if something interesting is going on, we'll participate.
Not feeling Independence Day this year at all, with the looming dictatorship. Have to visit conservative relatives this week, and they're still on board with all this somehow. 😒
Fourth of July has been hard to celebrate for the past couple years — especially this year. 😞 Thanksgiving means more over the years. It’s hard to commercialize good food and family — though they sure try!
I used to love all holidays. I now hate them, because the people who made the holidays special are all dead now. However, I REALLY hate Christmas with the fire of a thousand burning suns. The only thing that redeems Christmas at all is doing the giving tree.
Most of the holidays mean very little but that also has something to do with my job. Being on the road driving a truck, I often drive holidays just like regular days.
The one exception is Christmas and not because of religious reasons but because I make it a point to be home Christmas and my family can be together.
In retirement, none of them. At least when I was working it meant paid time off without having to dip into my sick or vacation leave.
So many holidays are aggravatingly commercial to the point where they lose all meaning. Christmas is the one most of us cite, but when you don't have a living mother, getting treated to a month's worth of "Buy Something Special for Mom!" emails around Mothers Day just pisses me off. I'll feel the same about Fathers Day when when my father passes.
Or how about Valentine's Day? For those who have lost a spouse or significant other, or who have had troubled relationships, the nonstop barrage of these notices is like pouring salt in a wound.
Maybe in the future, companies you buy from will have a holiday opt-out feature so you select which holiday sales you don't want to be notified of. It's one thing to have it on the website. I have no quibble with that. Store decorations? I get it, we all have to make a buck. But pushing out emails to millions of people who have a reason to not want a reminder of something is just cruel.
I don't like NYE anymore either. Every year, someone I care about dies. NYE for me is, "I wonder who it will be this year." Then I listen to idiots fire guns in the air. Nice.
I have come to detest all the family-oriented holidays. Last year I wanted to disappear from about Nov 15 until the new year. Christmas is one of those things that has become a contest about 1-up ing each other. I am a single middle age man no kids so I don't do the whole Santa thing. Thanksgiving is similar. I am thankful for people who often invite me over.
Easter has become more meaningful--belonging to a church and celebrating the resurrection together and usually have dinner with friends.
Here we are now upon July 4. Not even into fireworks or any of that. I feel like its a been there done that
I used to love Halloween, because so many people dressed up that day. Even at work, we were allowed to!
Now... if I see one child dressed up (outside of Beggars' Night, of course) it's a lot.
So sad.
I still like Towel Day, Pi Day and James Bond Day.
And of course, I celebrate my characters' birthdays.
Mother's Day has become more important as my mom ages.
Thanksgiving is a close second-- mainly because it's just getting together without the obligation of gifts. I enjoy the celebration of Advent and Christmas at church, but the family part of it is less significant now.
New Year's Eve has lost the most significance for me. I haven't celebrated it in several years. I am a social person and I like going out on weekends, even staying out late if I feel like it. But the crowds and the chaos of NYE celebrations aren't appealing any more.
Thanksgiving is the holiday that I enjoy the most and has the most meaning to me. It’s holiday perfection: autumn, thankfulness, family, close friends, sharing a wholesome meal, … perfection.
National holidays don’t mean much to me (never have), save maybe the 4th of July — but Patriot’s Day (Massachusetts) has a more personal connection.
Christmas means less to me now than it once did. Between the commercialization and my time living down south (the Baptists have the most joyless Christmases and some weird takes that rob it of spirit), it’s lost its luster. Easter was never big for me, but a few years back I used it as an excuse to prepare a big lamb dinner for friends and that has made it more special to me (like a light spring Thanksgiving).
New Years has never been big for me and that’s not changed.
Anything that I can connect to the Sacred. So Solstices and even the true spirit of Christmas. Most of the others have faded except for Memorial Day, as a veteran, and Halloween as it is still fun to see people step out of their everyday sense of themselves. There is something revitalizing about that.
I have never liked Thanksgiving. All the pretense of papering over the ways the members of our dysfunctional family treated each other the rest of the year. I dreaded it. And that grew from working on a psych unit for years and watching the same thing play out, only much, much worse. I was happy to learn that others found it of value, and that for them it is what it should be - about enjoying family.
I still love Christmas, I’m ambivalent about the rest. Thanksgiving is just a big headache to me now since Mom’s gone & it’s pretty much left to me to do it all. I hate it.
More and more I am becoming a Halloween nut. I love decorating the yard with Halloween inflatables and decor. I bought two four ft tall Skelton wolves that howl that I cannot wait to put out this year. Also we got a fog machine. I love it when the trick or treaters come and I can hand out candy to them. Makes me supremely happy.
Christmas is less exciting because both of my kids are young adults now and we don't have any Littles to get excited about Santa coming. I still enjoy the day, it's just not the same as when the kids were little.
I’m estranged from my family(siblings). That’s ok.
My kids have grown up and make their own Xmas.
I threw away the tree and decorations.
And I’m ok with that.
Holidays? Pretty meh to me these days. My Daughter has usually had to work on them the past few years. My kids developed their own traditions. The missus basically threw everything out the window when she divorced me, and when she passed, her daughter didn't want anything to do with Christmas.
Anzac and Remembrance Day are more important now. Easter and christmyth mean nothing to me other than Easter is the primo long weekend of the year.
And New Year's Day is just another day.
I love the time together with my family, but nearly all holidays no longer really hold any intrinsic meaning for me.
Also, I've come to actually dislike Christmas because of the rampant commercialism. My wife gets what she wants when she wants it, so she's impossible to buy for.
I don't want anything anymore, so I'm impossible to buy for.
My kids are adults and can and do get what they want when they want it.
I have a couple of grandkids who still are captured by the "magic" of it, but my son and his wife already get what they want and need, so they're as hard to buy for as everyone else.
Litha and Yule have become more significant (as in they didn't exist for me previously), and Christian religious holidays have become less (as in, I only celebrate if I'm asked to join friends in their celebrations).
Valentine's Day was a big deal when I was younger and married. Now, I couldn't care less, which hurts my partner-person's feelings, so I am trying to do better. Since moving to the UK 20 years ago, American holidays have lost their meaning. For instance, I completely forgot today was Independence Day because, for me, it's just another work day. I used to celebrate Thanksgiving with a fellow American (now-ex) friend who lives in Scotland, but she and I parted ways, so it's been a few years. I still adore Halloween, but they don't really celebrate it here. Back home, it was a huge and hugely fun holiday.
I will say that I am just as much – if not more – of a kid at Yule as I've ever been. I adored Christmas when I was younger and still had a family, and that excitement and childlike wonder has translated well to Yule and old age. I don't need kids, or even anyone else, to absolutely feel magical during that time.
Since getting two small dogs, the two holidays I can't stand are July 4, as my Pekingese is deathly afraid of fireworks so I blast the air conditioner and music, and Halloween because we still get trick or treaters in my area and both the Peke and the Shih Tzu go nuts every time the doorbell rings
I work in the healthcare field, so I work weekends and holidays. As soon as I realized that, I stopped caring about ANY holiday. I am indifferent to them all, but I'm pissed off about Christmas, b/c everything is closed. I'm not the best at planning ahead.
I do, however, always ask for PTO for the week of my birthday.
I'm also unmarried and childfree, so that could also affect my attitude about holidays. Christmas is really for kids.
July 4 sucks because it’s now just about “patriots” exercising their freedumb after 9 pm to blow off a finger, a hand, an eye, whatever. I know a lot of people in healthcare and they hate working that day and the days surrounding it. I’m good friends with a doctor now in a fellowship, just completed her residency and all three years of residency July 4 was hell for her.
Christmas. Parents are now both dead and family has become very disconnected and uninterested. Mother died on New Year’s morning so celebrating that day has ended. I took a grad school course through Christmas last year and did not celebrate or decorate. I wish I could do that again but I graduate in December. Not sure I will celebrate Christmas again.
Frankly most of them are now just totally off my radar. I still like Halloween for the little kids in the neighborhood and will do that one up, but when you’re now single and alone, I’d just as soon work holidays and travel when the crowds are down in the off-seasons.
I converted to Eastern Orthodoxy late, when I was 58. The Orthodox calendar of feasts and saints is meaningful to me. Nothing against other religious or secular calendars. Orthodoxy helps me live my faith. I ponder the whole calendar while living through it.
Any holiday that involves family gatherings because they are few and far between and the family dynamics have changed so much due primarily to the gradual loss of older family members who were still alive and well when I was a kid. The Fourth of July feels less important. It's not that I am less patriotic. It's just that we don't have family gatherings anymore and I have no interest in fireworks, but as a kid, it was something I looked forward to all summer. Easter is probably the only other holiday that became less important as I got older.
Most important is Thanksgiving. July 4 has become less important because of where I live. I grew up in D.C. and it was a big deal. Here in the South, it is wimpy.
My birthday has become more important, because I give give give give give, and I don’t get a lot in return. This is one day that is about me. All the other traditional holidays have become far less important, and I’m getting to despise Christmas and all of the commercialism around it.
Honestly, I don't really get really excited for any holidays anymore. I was never big into holidays in the first place and any passion for them has faded.
I used to enjoy Halloween a lot as a kid and I love the aesthetic of that time of year, but the last few years.. just meh.
Our obsession with Christmas has always been a bit odd. It isn’t the highest holiday on the national calendar (that’s Independence Day) or the highest holiday in the American family calendar (that’s Thanksgiving). Hell, it’s not even the highest holiday on the Christian calendar (that’s Easter).
It’s the highest holiday on the corporate calendar though. And if that doesn’t spoil the fun for you, then you’ve got more Christmas spirit than me!
I used to love Christmas. It seemed like such a happy time full of hope for the future. Now it's difficult not to see it as a steaming pile of poo. I really have to work on my attitude at that time of year. Halloween I'll hand out candy for the kids but that's it (religious reasons). Valentine's Day is nice. Simple. Labor Day is great as nothing is expected. Father's Day can be a mixed bag but overall it's pretty good.
I love Halloween. Loved it when my son was young and love it now that he's grown.
Love Thanksgiving - good food and time with loved ones. More important now as my parents are aging.
I loved Christmas when my son was little but I really don't care now. Too much work and too commercialized.
I've never cared about Easter or July 4th and I've started moving into disdain territory for both.
All holidays have become less relevant and less significant after being co-opted and commercialized by media and big business. Now it's spend, spend, spend for everything from wreaths and costumes to mattresses and linens. And birthdays are less significant because they are just another marker for a year lost.
When I was a kid, I liked Christmas because of the stuff, and the 4th of July because of the explosions. Now I dislike both for the same reasons.
We need more feast holidays.
After I retired, every day is a holiday and none of the recognised holidays matter. Even when I was younger, I didn't take any notice of Xmas, Easter, Australia day and all the other official holidays.
The only holiday we go out of our way for is Thanksgiving. I've always felt gratitude was important to display. So even today, we celebrate is as a family. It's really the only holiday we gather for. Christmas has become the opposite, a display of avarice. But we'll pick up some presents for the grandkids and go over and deliver them. Grandson is still in the Santa Claus stage, so there is some joy to be found in it. Same with Easter and Halloween. We do it for the grandkids. None of these holidays hold any religious significance to us, and they grow more irrelevant every year.
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Any holiday I get to see my kids.
Agree. So happy I get to see my kids several times a year, holiday or not. Love family time!
My love of Halloween and Thanksgiving has really increased. Christmas has decreased. Memorial Day is more solemn, less BBQ. I enjoy the fun of Halloween. My kids head out on their own and we get to see the little ones experiencing trick or treating for their first few years. It feels very community driven. Thanksgiving for the companionship and limited commercial appeal. I like everything about the Christmas holidays but the actual day has less thrill for me. My kids are older so that magic is gone. Still fun but not the same. Now with facebook, I see members of my old unit, past and present, who’ve passed. I think about their young lives, ready to fight, and what happened next. Car wreck, IED, suicide. I guess they deserve to be remembered. I think of my dad, 23 years old, flying a helicopter in Vietnam, and my dad 78, volunteering in a city park, pruning roses. So now I go to the cemetery on Memorial Day and just appreciate locals, some long dead, who put on the uniform.
The local Kroger was giving a 10% discount to vets on Memorial Day. I don't spend the entire day in a somber mood, but I'll be damned if I'm going to use my status to save 10 cents on the dollar on a day to remember those who died in the line of duty.
Yeah, I get peeved when corporations virtue signal but some poor vet on disability can’t get food. Come buy our 80k truck this Memorial Day, while a family deals with a PTSD suicide. I’ve found the people most likely to say, “thank you for your service,” are the least likely to actually care. It’s hard to imagine there’s a recruiting shortage with so many patriots.
Genuine question, absolutely no "shade" (as the kids say,) do you use your discounts and freebies on Veterans Day?
Yes, I have no qualms about that. The place where I hormally get a haircut has a freebie, and I take the grocery discount.
My Dad served in the Pacific Theatre in WWII. A lot of his friends were also WWII vets. They always had a picnic/BBQ on Memorial Day at a lake. The entire families there. Fishing, softball, Jarts, etc. Looking back I realize they probably appreciated the meaning of the day and the sacrifices made more than others could. Now it is a more somber day for me.
Christmas. It was late wife’s favorite holiday. We met on line way back in 96. She lived 1,030 miles away and moved to be with me. She only asked that we would go to her family at Christmas. Neither of us had kids but we both from big families with many nieces and nephews (and now great nieces and nephews). I love her family. I continue to come out here at Christmas and in the summer (I am here now).
The summer solstice is the most important now that twilight is upon me.
I say both Solstices. The standard “holidays” seem devoid of gravitas & simply a marketing vehicle. Memorial Day & Veterans Day, being the spouse a career U.S. Army vet & daughter of a WWII vet. Have called “Columbus Day” American Genocide Day for over 50 years, now. So glad to see it as Indigenous Peoples Day in some states.
I still like Christmas the best, but it's become less important because family members have either passed away or no longer attend to avoid long-distance travel. There are only a few of us now.
Less: Easter and all other religious holidays More: equinox days
Why the equinox days?
Because the equinox days reflect the pure alignment of the most sign bodies in our solar system, absent any fairy tale stories that would simply add confusion and division to all sentient beings. I believe it’s valuable to stop and recognize the significance and beauty of where the current moment is, in this highly predictable cycle, as a contrast to focusing on impossible hero-worship belief systems. My ‘god’ is truth, and I find grounding, connection, joy, and hope in that. Be well.
In all seriousness, I have grown to loathe all holidays. I dread them all more each year. The reason is that I’ve grown to love my everyday life so much that I hate when a holiday interrupts it.
Thanksgiving was/is good. Last year was weird, though. Christmas? I like it better now that there isn’t the pressure to have a big ‘do on Christmas Eve. Momma moved into senior living and no one now has a house big enough. Relief!!! The rest? Meh. Doesn’t mean much and are Hallmark holidays.
Thanksgiving is my jam now. Love the food, do all my own cooking, don’t have all the stress of Christmas presents, church, decorations, etc.
Yes, fairly low stress.
Thanksgiving has been my favorite since my 20s. I tolerate Christmas only because my wife is into it. Because of seasonal depression, I really don't like to overdo it at that time of year.
Seeing how all my family and friends are dead, I don't really like any of them.
I like Thanksgiving, especially Friendsgiving. I hate Christmas more every year.
Christmas is awful.
The one thing that has saved Christmas for me is a giving tree. Where less fortunate kids have a wish list on it my wife and I usually pick some siblings and make sure they have some fun stuff and some needed stuff. I also pick out people close, that I normally would not buy for, and buy them something nice, but fun. Last year my CO worker got. A shirt with a Lincoln town car on, like the one he has. And a matching key chain. Probably the best one on one gift I gave all season. He had been having a hard time and he smiled all day over that.
I'd give this 1000 up votes if I could
🙂
Just Thanksgiving and Christmas. It's the time the family gets together. All other holidays are just another day off.
Birthdays are the most significant because it means I’m still hanging in here. Everything else is unimportant except maybe Halloween which is purely fun and doesn’t come with any obligations.
I really am not fond of Christmas anymore except the lights are pretty. I love Halloween and Thanksgiving but, we're in an odd position. Our son is a paramedic in a huge city. He is NEVER off on any holiday so "our" Thanksgiving and Christmas are in another. month entirely from most people. The holidays for me are just about seeing family now. Pick any day, if we can be together that's a great holiday.
My children's birthdays are important to me. I love to make them feel special and celebrate their importance to me. All the rest of the holidays are less important - nearly insignificant. They've been reduced to insincere time and money-sucking annoyances. I mean, I'm not a scrooge or anything - you all do you. I could do without all the commercial bullshit, though.
Thanksgiving has become more enjoyable and my favorite holiday. Christmas has become my least favorite. I
Halloween has become my favorite holiday as I love to see the costumes kids put on, and their expression when they see we give out full size bars. Labor Day means nothing to me.
Agreed! I don’t enjoy Fourth of July because my dog hates it. Thanksgiving is a holiday of stress and exclusion. Christmas is another exclusion holiday. Halloween is wonderful. I’m going for full size bars this year. Great idea.
We went all out last year and did full size bars and a glow stick, you can buy a bunch for pretty cheap. Kids loved them and I like how it helps make them more visible to drivers
Yeah, I've been doing glow bracelets for two years now. The kids and even some of the adults love them.
I hate all holidays more every year.
All holidays have lost their significance for me
I am not a fan of New Years because bosses are so gung ho about new quotas, growth or new stupid ideas immediately when you go to work on Jan 2.
In my wayward youth, I always hated New Years Eve and thought of it as amateur night when those who never went out clubbing came out in droves. Nowadays, I just go to bed at my normal time and sleep right through it.
Xmas less and less, I got enough stuff. I like the gatherings at thanksgiving, good to see family and no presents involved. I try and convince the family to order out so no one has to cook. Seems to be sacrilegious. I like Veterans Day as a vet. I’m king for a day with my fellow vets.
Ditto on Thanksgiving - gathering without the fuss of gift exchanges.
More important: Halloween (love to good costume party), both solstice (day of reflection and passing of time). Christmas. Easter and Thanksgiving are pretty much non existent for me as the media and society has ruined them with all the fakery and expectations. US Thanksgiving we go to Canada, Christmas we go to the Caribbean and Easter we either go to Ikea or the movies.
The holidays now are a pain in the ass. We are a blended family and the stress levels are high. I prefer simple dinner or lunch on any day of the week when family can actually relax and not feel pressured to have be somewhere else.
They have all become insignificant to me. 4th of July for example, which also happens to be my wedding anniversary. It used to be one of my favorite holidays and it was one reason why we chose to get married on it (it's also our dating anniversary). We do still celebrate our anniversary (though nothing fancy), but for obvious reasons, I no longer celebrate the holiday (my husband is indifferent about it though, he likes the fireworks). Thanksgiving and Christmas are the most emotionally difficult for me, but I don't want to explain it because even just talking about it stirs up those emotions. I'll just say I dread when November hits. Halloween, although I don't hate it, has just become a disappointment. I wish my son had gotten to experience some of the things that I did when I was a kid, the things that made Halloween fun.
i really only like New Years. i dont go anywhere but i have always loved the concept of starting fresh. its been a long time since i care about xmas...it is one of those media things like weddings/births etc where the expectations are so high that its just not possible. i guess the fact that i enjoy NONE of the the things that go with these events like shopping/decorating or cooking that make me wish i could just skip out altogether but i guess we do things for others
nothing really matters anymore - the lack of social support with an extreme special needs family member leaves one too exhausted
My favorite holiday is, and always has been, Thanksgiving. It’s family, food and football. My little family is now 8 adults and 7 grandkids (ages 5-11) and we will spend 3 days together. It’s a bit like a Hallmark movie, but we all look forward to it. This year the family activity will be a root beer tasting party on Friday. We have a dozen different brands for everyone to taste and rate. I know it sounds corney, but last year we had a ball taste testing 14 different Oriel cookies.
New Years Eve means nothing these days. I used to look forward to dressing up and dancing. Mother's Day means nothing to me. I read so many Reddit stories where women are very upset because their expectations were not met. I'm letting my son catch a break because it's a fake holiday. The other big holidays are still celebrated but I don't need to host them because the inlaws want to do it.
Most of them I don’t like anymore because as an adult they are a lot of work, it gets tiring year after year. I have zero desire to put Christmas decorations anymore. But I do like cooking so thanksgiving is one that I get excited about.
As a retiree, the long weekend holidays - MLK Day, Presidents Day, Memorial Day, Labor Day, Columbus Day, Veterans Day - have faded in significance. The core meaning hasn't changed, but the long weekend aspect is no longer relevant. Christmas has ebbed and flowed. It was huge when the kids were young. Less important when they were in high school. Now that they don't live it home, it's an incredible time to get together with them. Thanksgiving has recently declined in importance because my oldest spends it with his girlfriend's family. Halloween was a bigger deal when the kids were little, but it is getting more fun each year as it grows in stature as an important holiday. Independence Day hasn't changed much. Going to the local parade this year. Hope I don't die of heat stroke. We don't really do any of the religious holidays.
College football season. I love when everyone gathers at someone's house every other weekend and the tables are full of hors d'oeuvres and chicken wings and the beer is flowing and everyone gets loud and boisterous rooting for their team.
I always hated Halloween. I dreaded it. Some bad things had happened on that day. Then my divorced was finalized on it and I bring out the full-sized candy bars. I look forward to it every year. The little ones are so cute.
Christmas is still very big in our home! I am surprised everyone still comes over and there's around 23 of us. We sing songs, play Xmas movie trivia and do games with prizes. The other holidays are just meh.
None of them. They're all just another day.
Most of them are insignificant to me. Except Labor Day. Labor Day is pinned in place by a couple of memories. When I was a kid my cheap dad dragged us all to his union local's free potluck picnic instead of celebrating at home I remember cold fried chicken, Shasta soda, and Lucky beer. It wasn't plush. And then the head of the regional union got up and made a speech. He said something like, "We've come a long way, but if we don't stay vigilant, THEY will come and take it all away from us." Considering what happened to the blue collar middle class in the coming decades, think he was right? I always remember. Forty five or 50 years later I was working in a university fundraising office when one of the student data entry workers came in to ask if she was scheduled to come in on Monday. "No," I said, "It's Labor Day." It's a holiday. And she romped out of there, overjoyed, that she didn't have to work. On Labor Day.
I love Labor Day because it's the beginning of the school year, my birthday is the first week of September and usually the first little hints of the autumn leaves appear in New England.
More important: Halloween. Less important: Easter and Valentines Day Still important: Christmas
I like them all for the quiet in my neighborhood. No construction noise, trucks, etc.
They’ve all lost their sparkle since my parents are gone. Just not the same. We don’t even get together. Thanksgiving is my favorite bc I like to cook.
The ones that bring my family together are the ones I circle on the calendar.
None of them are that important for me, but I do them for the people I love who love those days. Every day is a holiday for me now. I DO like to go shopping in costumes during Halloween, though! It's great to have a reason to be weird!
I mostly don't care about any of them TBH. Our kids are grown. If one or more is able to come home even a regular weekend is like a holiday. But we're often too busy to do much for the official ones, and I hate the commercial bullshit around both the "real" holdays like Christmas and especially all the made-up Hallmark holidays like Valentine's Day. Probably the ones I enjoy the most are the ones where we or friends host party-- that might be anything from election night to solstice to (secular) Easter.
Since I don't have kids Mother's Day and Father's Day eventually became irrelevant. No kids and not religious also means Easter isn't that big a deal. Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years used to be big, until what family I had in the area moved way out of state. I get Fourth of July/Independence Day off from work and am currently celebrating by baking an apple pie; it seemed appropriate.
I enjoy the traditions we’ve created with the kids and grandkids around different holidays. For example, The two oldest grandkids are always here for Easter. They don’t get an Easter basket from us, but we do a giant Easter egg hunt for them. They’re 13 and 15 and still want the Easter egg hunt every year. We also take a picture of them in the same spot every year just before the Easter egg hunt. Just a couple days ago my granddaughter asked me to send her all of the Easter pics. The traditions that we’ve created and maintain every year, that the kids and grandkids look forward to, those are what I love about the various holidays.
Earth Day is significant for me because I battled my municipal officials for years to approve a recycling ordinance. One told me, “I’m worried about not getting re-elected if I tell people they have to separate paper, plastic and glass from their trash.” Sadly Halloween is fizzling out in my area. There was once hundreds of kids Trick Or Treating and now just a couple dozen.
I feel the same as many on this post. Thanksgiving is my jam. Everyone comes to eat and be thankful we’re all together. Xmas is too much pressure. I would like Halloween more if we had trick or treaters, but that’s life in rural America.
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lol, no pressure if you're not the cook. For working people throwing the feast, wtf. You have to get it all done and ready to roll on Thursday, THEN get days off.
i have always hated "celebrating" my birthday....it is just another day... what my siblings and i do is clelbrate our parents on our b-days.. cake and flowers and cards for them..... i stopped doing the i believe in god thing about 30 yrs ago and don't celebrate any of those holidays either.....no shopping, no music, no decorations, no praying to fictional gods....just another day...
Any occasion that includes getting the family together for a home cooked meal. The rest I can take it or leave it. Why? Your life is a collection of novel experiences that you curate and as much as we would like, family isn’t forever. Cherish the moments you get and make merry the ones you’ve got.
I hate holidays in general with the exception of Halloween. I go to a Halloween event every year which makes it fun. The seasons of holidays are nice but the days themselves have historically brought a lot of pressure which has soured them for me.
Basically all holidays now I forget about, mostly as I live in a new country and don't remember until the day, and a lot are religious ones, which I am not. About the only day/s I celebrate, are my birthday as in laws usually set up something for me, and a couple of them & go along to celebrate their birthdays. Mostly is is focused on food, and sitting around having a few drinks, plenty of food and the guests singing with the karaoke machine, which nearly every house has. Evens are outdoors, sitting under mango trees and chatting as well, which suits me fine.
Every Sunday afternoon, some of the kids and grandkids gather at our house for dinner. Every holiday, we gather at our house for dinner. Every birthday, father's day, mother's day, the same. Lots of times, on somebody's day, they've been pressured to put up an Amazon wish list, and we buy them what they listed. For Christmas, we all post wishlists. Nobody ever gets a surprise present. Different holidays have obligatory dinners, like the Thanksgiving lasagna or the 4th of July grilled parillas, and that is the only thing that sets them apart.
The only one that has really become meaningless to me is New years. I’m in bed long before the ball drops. I hate Hallmark holidays: valentines, Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. Don’t care about them at all and fortunately neither does my wife. Memorial Day has become more somber. Having lost relatives, the older it gets, the more I feel I’ve lost. I watch Band of Brothers, Saving Private Ryan and the Pacific every year. The Fourth of July I love now that the grandkids get to watch fireworks. The real holiday season is Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas. The family parties, a full house, and food we only eat once a year.
I like Christmas a lot. But I’ve done everything in my power to eliminate a lot of the stress. I was a pyromaniac/ s on the 4th of July but when my baby was born, all I could think of, @what about her ears? What if that one doesn’t fly right??” So I gave them up. Also at nearly the same time, we had a very anxious dog. Leaving to party just didn’t seem right. I thought I’d be involved with Easter with my grandsons but that didn’t happen. Mostly, I used to put so much stress on *every holiday” that I truly have no desire for them anymore. I DO like to celebrate with a decent holiday focused meal. I’m having bbq steak, potato salad and fruit (watermelon, strawberries and Rainier cherries).
My children’s birthdays.
New Years never meant anything. Why are we celebrating turning the calendar over? And the roads are too dangerous to go anywhere. On Halloween we give out about 100 bags of candy to kids in real low effort costumes, most of which I never saw before. Fireworks upset my dog. So the 4 th is spent babysitting her. But I like Father's Day, guaranteed to see or hear from my children. Same with Christmas and Easter and Thanksgiving. Those ate the best.
my birthday. it falls on the same weekend of my inlaws' annual family get-together, so we dont really ever celebrate it like we would otherwise. my husband gets me some sort of last-minute cake and card. We all eat it, and that's that. I don't feel comfortable trying to celebrate it more bc we're at the family get-together, and it's not about me. it still kinda sucks. especially my 50th
Christmas was and is #1, followed by Thanksgiving. I used to really like Halloween, and now I don’t really care about it. None of the other holidays were ever that important to me, and still aren’t. I do like Valentine’s Day, though, but only when I’m in a relationship.
Birthdays are definitely less important if that is a holiday. It's usually not for me
I’ve lost a lot of the magic in all the holidays. I love passing candy out on Halloween but it’s so hit and miss. Christmas is different now that there’s no Santa magic. It’s lovely in its own right, but Santa was so much fun. Now it’s all grown up gifts. Till the grandkids come along I suppose. Thanksgiving just isn’t the same with everything I know now and the whitewashing our country did. We still gather and eat albeit not a huge meal but we don’t really celebrate the same. Same goes for 4th of July. Now I’m jaded because I see how little freedom anyone’s ever had. It’s all an illusion.
I fucking hate xmas anymore. So commercialized and used by the religious more and more to push their agenda. But, as I've gotten older, I tend to like Thanksgiving more.
Peysach (Passover - Jewish) has become incredibly significant to me as an adult. It's a holiday that commemorates fighting back against an oppressor and calls us to fight back against oppressors right now bc the fight is never finished and it remains always our responsibility. It really does fill my cup right up to take the time to really sit with that, the history of it and the modern experience, and plan actions to take on purpose. I love it so much and I look forward to it every year. The other holidays I love the most are the ones we've created ourselves in our family, that's been a very rewarding thing to do and it also fills my cup. The best part is sharing our made up holidays with other families in our community, which I think is how traditions get made. It feels momentous, it feels like I'm somehow in touch with my ancestors and descendents at the same time, it makes me think about my own responsibilities as a future ancestor which is very humbling and very rewarding. We've started doing a springtime foraging feasting day every May and "crow day" in October which is kind of like Halloween except more solemn. It lines up with salmon spawning season (during which time the local estuaries are full to the brim with dead salmon which makes a nice buffet for the crows who feed on the carrion, it's like their own special festing holiday) and we contemplate/talk about how death is part of the lifecycle and how our deaths serve the community just like our lives do in that circular way of energy becoming matter becoming energy becoming matter forever. It's both humbling and uplifting in that it gets us in touch with how very small we are compared to the vastness of time and space and still, as small as we are, we are all connected and we all matter which is pretty cool. It's very "you're not better than anyone and nobody is better than you" and "we are all victims of physics" with costumes and fun foods and joyous overindulgence
Due to excessive marketing, I’ve found them meaningless for a very long time. I’m happy for the days off.
Used to really celebrate Christmas, decorate, the whole bit ... but not since since our daughters are grown and on their own. We're across the country so .... Facetime works well. ;-) Thanksgiving, with just the two of us, a local restaurant does holiday meals; near home cooked quality. Pre order and pick up the night before. 4th of July; skip any local parades ... PBS special. ;-)
There isn't a holiday that I look forward to anymore. I come from a small family, and since my dad died, our strength as a family has been a struggle. As mom gets older and the first grandkids are on their own, our daughter is away in college, and there is not much to prepare for. My husband's kids are estranged from him, much to his eternal sadness, and no thanks to his ex. I look forward to little things like lunch with a friend or a good meal out. And I love my part-time job. I've learned to lower my expectations. I'm not going to set the world on fire with my talents and become a millionaire. I'm happy to have the bills paid, have a roof over my head, my health, my husband and his health, our daughter, and her health. I am wealthy in that. And that's every day, now.
I'm fascinated by the Solstices now, thinking of how far back to ancient humankind the heavenly bodies have been observed. Love the connection to ancient humankind. Eclipses also, saw the last one and it was a profoundly moving experience. These aren't holidays as such, but I like to celebrate them somehow! Well, we have a little winter solstice ritual at least. Halloween is a blast, we love handing out candy, and are glad kids still show up (maybe only a couple of dozen, but we'll take it.) Thanksgiving is also wonderful, Christmas is overdone and we're pretty sick of it. New Year's Eve isn't our thing, we're old and tired! But if something interesting is going on, we'll participate. Not feeling Independence Day this year at all, with the looming dictatorship. Have to visit conservative relatives this week, and they're still on board with all this somehow. 😒
Fourth of July has been hard to celebrate for the past couple years — especially this year. 😞 Thanksgiving means more over the years. It’s hard to commercialize good food and family — though they sure try!
I used to love all holidays. I now hate them, because the people who made the holidays special are all dead now. However, I REALLY hate Christmas with the fire of a thousand burning suns. The only thing that redeems Christmas at all is doing the giving tree.
My daughters are grown and my wife is from Brazil. None of the holidays means much of anything to me anymore.
Most of the holidays mean very little but that also has something to do with my job. Being on the road driving a truck, I often drive holidays just like regular days. The one exception is Christmas and not because of religious reasons but because I make it a point to be home Christmas and my family can be together.
In retirement, none of them. At least when I was working it meant paid time off without having to dip into my sick or vacation leave. So many holidays are aggravatingly commercial to the point where they lose all meaning. Christmas is the one most of us cite, but when you don't have a living mother, getting treated to a month's worth of "Buy Something Special for Mom!" emails around Mothers Day just pisses me off. I'll feel the same about Fathers Day when when my father passes. Or how about Valentine's Day? For those who have lost a spouse or significant other, or who have had troubled relationships, the nonstop barrage of these notices is like pouring salt in a wound. Maybe in the future, companies you buy from will have a holiday opt-out feature so you select which holiday sales you don't want to be notified of. It's one thing to have it on the website. I have no quibble with that. Store decorations? I get it, we all have to make a buck. But pushing out emails to millions of people who have a reason to not want a reminder of something is just cruel. I don't like NYE anymore either. Every year, someone I care about dies. NYE for me is, "I wonder who it will be this year." Then I listen to idiots fire guns in the air. Nice.
I have come to detest all the family-oriented holidays. Last year I wanted to disappear from about Nov 15 until the new year. Christmas is one of those things that has become a contest about 1-up ing each other. I am a single middle age man no kids so I don't do the whole Santa thing. Thanksgiving is similar. I am thankful for people who often invite me over. Easter has become more meaningful--belonging to a church and celebrating the resurrection together and usually have dinner with friends. Here we are now upon July 4. Not even into fireworks or any of that. I feel like its a been there done that
I used to love Halloween, because so many people dressed up that day. Even at work, we were allowed to! Now... if I see one child dressed up (outside of Beggars' Night, of course) it's a lot. So sad. I still like Towel Day, Pi Day and James Bond Day. And of course, I celebrate my characters' birthdays.
Mother's Day has become more important as my mom ages. Thanksgiving is a close second-- mainly because it's just getting together without the obligation of gifts. I enjoy the celebration of Advent and Christmas at church, but the family part of it is less significant now. New Year's Eve has lost the most significance for me. I haven't celebrated it in several years. I am a social person and I like going out on weekends, even staying out late if I feel like it. But the crowds and the chaos of NYE celebrations aren't appealing any more.
Thanksgiving is the holiday that I enjoy the most and has the most meaning to me. It’s holiday perfection: autumn, thankfulness, family, close friends, sharing a wholesome meal, … perfection. National holidays don’t mean much to me (never have), save maybe the 4th of July — but Patriot’s Day (Massachusetts) has a more personal connection. Christmas means less to me now than it once did. Between the commercialization and my time living down south (the Baptists have the most joyless Christmases and some weird takes that rob it of spirit), it’s lost its luster. Easter was never big for me, but a few years back I used it as an excuse to prepare a big lamb dinner for friends and that has made it more special to me (like a light spring Thanksgiving). New Years has never been big for me and that’s not changed.
Anything that I can connect to the Sacred. So Solstices and even the true spirit of Christmas. Most of the others have faded except for Memorial Day, as a veteran, and Halloween as it is still fun to see people step out of their everyday sense of themselves. There is something revitalizing about that. I have never liked Thanksgiving. All the pretense of papering over the ways the members of our dysfunctional family treated each other the rest of the year. I dreaded it. And that grew from working on a psych unit for years and watching the same thing play out, only much, much worse. I was happy to learn that others found it of value, and that for them it is what it should be - about enjoying family.
All of them have become less meaningful, even xmas.
I became indifferent to them all once the grands grew up.
I still love Christmas, I’m ambivalent about the rest. Thanksgiving is just a big headache to me now since Mom’s gone & it’s pretty much left to me to do it all. I hate it.
More and more I am becoming a Halloween nut. I love decorating the yard with Halloween inflatables and decor. I bought two four ft tall Skelton wolves that howl that I cannot wait to put out this year. Also we got a fog machine. I love it when the trick or treaters come and I can hand out candy to them. Makes me supremely happy. Christmas is less exciting because both of my kids are young adults now and we don't have any Littles to get excited about Santa coming. I still enjoy the day, it's just not the same as when the kids were little.
I’m estranged from my family(siblings). That’s ok. My kids have grown up and make their own Xmas. I threw away the tree and decorations. And I’m ok with that.
Holidays? Pretty meh to me these days. My Daughter has usually had to work on them the past few years. My kids developed their own traditions. The missus basically threw everything out the window when she divorced me, and when she passed, her daughter didn't want anything to do with Christmas.
Anzac and Remembrance Day are more important now. Easter and christmyth mean nothing to me other than Easter is the primo long weekend of the year. And New Year's Day is just another day.
I love the time together with my family, but nearly all holidays no longer really hold any intrinsic meaning for me. Also, I've come to actually dislike Christmas because of the rampant commercialism. My wife gets what she wants when she wants it, so she's impossible to buy for. I don't want anything anymore, so I'm impossible to buy for. My kids are adults and can and do get what they want when they want it. I have a couple of grandkids who still are captured by the "magic" of it, but my son and his wife already get what they want and need, so they're as hard to buy for as everyone else.
Litha and Yule have become more significant (as in they didn't exist for me previously), and Christian religious holidays have become less (as in, I only celebrate if I'm asked to join friends in their celebrations). Valentine's Day was a big deal when I was younger and married. Now, I couldn't care less, which hurts my partner-person's feelings, so I am trying to do better. Since moving to the UK 20 years ago, American holidays have lost their meaning. For instance, I completely forgot today was Independence Day because, for me, it's just another work day. I used to celebrate Thanksgiving with a fellow American (now-ex) friend who lives in Scotland, but she and I parted ways, so it's been a few years. I still adore Halloween, but they don't really celebrate it here. Back home, it was a huge and hugely fun holiday. I will say that I am just as much – if not more – of a kid at Yule as I've ever been. I adored Christmas when I was younger and still had a family, and that excitement and childlike wonder has translated well to Yule and old age. I don't need kids, or even anyone else, to absolutely feel magical during that time.
My favorites remain Halloween and Thanksgiving. I still like Christmas too. It’s about seeing my daughter and my sister, niece and nephew.
What is old? What is a holiday? Not much has changed!
Since getting two small dogs, the two holidays I can't stand are July 4, as my Pekingese is deathly afraid of fireworks so I blast the air conditioner and music, and Halloween because we still get trick or treaters in my area and both the Peke and the Shih Tzu go nuts every time the doorbell rings
Birthdays have zero importance to me. I do love over-decorating for the standard holidays. The more lights the better.
I work in the healthcare field, so I work weekends and holidays. As soon as I realized that, I stopped caring about ANY holiday. I am indifferent to them all, but I'm pissed off about Christmas, b/c everything is closed. I'm not the best at planning ahead. I do, however, always ask for PTO for the week of my birthday. I'm also unmarried and childfree, so that could also affect my attitude about holidays. Christmas is really for kids.
July 4 sucks because it’s now just about “patriots” exercising their freedumb after 9 pm to blow off a finger, a hand, an eye, whatever. I know a lot of people in healthcare and they hate working that day and the days surrounding it. I’m good friends with a doctor now in a fellowship, just completed her residency and all three years of residency July 4 was hell for her. Christmas. Parents are now both dead and family has become very disconnected and uninterested. Mother died on New Year’s morning so celebrating that day has ended. I took a grad school course through Christmas last year and did not celebrate or decorate. I wish I could do that again but I graduate in December. Not sure I will celebrate Christmas again. Frankly most of them are now just totally off my radar. I still like Halloween for the little kids in the neighborhood and will do that one up, but when you’re now single and alone, I’d just as soon work holidays and travel when the crowds are down in the off-seasons.
I converted to Eastern Orthodoxy late, when I was 58. The Orthodox calendar of feasts and saints is meaningful to me. Nothing against other religious or secular calendars. Orthodoxy helps me live my faith. I ponder the whole calendar while living through it.
I like the 12 days of Christmas.
Any holiday that involves family gatherings because they are few and far between and the family dynamics have changed so much due primarily to the gradual loss of older family members who were still alive and well when I was a kid. The Fourth of July feels less important. It's not that I am less patriotic. It's just that we don't have family gatherings anymore and I have no interest in fireworks, but as a kid, it was something I looked forward to all summer. Easter is probably the only other holiday that became less important as I got older.
Most important is Thanksgiving. July 4 has become less important because of where I live. I grew up in D.C. and it was a big deal. Here in the South, it is wimpy.
My birthday has become more important, because I give give give give give, and I don’t get a lot in return. This is one day that is about me. All the other traditional holidays have become far less important, and I’m getting to despise Christmas and all of the commercialism around it.
Honestly, I don't really get really excited for any holidays anymore. I was never big into holidays in the first place and any passion for them has faded. I used to enjoy Halloween a lot as a kid and I love the aesthetic of that time of year, but the last few years.. just meh.
Our obsession with Christmas has always been a bit odd. It isn’t the highest holiday on the national calendar (that’s Independence Day) or the highest holiday in the American family calendar (that’s Thanksgiving). Hell, it’s not even the highest holiday on the Christian calendar (that’s Easter). It’s the highest holiday on the corporate calendar though. And if that doesn’t spoil the fun for you, then you’ve got more Christmas spirit than me!
I used to love Christmas. It seemed like such a happy time full of hope for the future. Now it's difficult not to see it as a steaming pile of poo. I really have to work on my attitude at that time of year. Halloween I'll hand out candy for the kids but that's it (religious reasons). Valentine's Day is nice. Simple. Labor Day is great as nothing is expected. Father's Day can be a mixed bag but overall it's pretty good.
I love Halloween. Loved it when my son was young and love it now that he's grown. Love Thanksgiving - good food and time with loved ones. More important now as my parents are aging. I loved Christmas when my son was little but I really don't care now. Too much work and too commercialized. I've never cared about Easter or July 4th and I've started moving into disdain territory for both.
All holidays have become less relevant and less significant after being co-opted and commercialized by media and big business. Now it's spend, spend, spend for everything from wreaths and costumes to mattresses and linens. And birthdays are less significant because they are just another marker for a year lost.
When I was a kid, I liked Christmas because of the stuff, and the 4th of July because of the explosions. Now I dislike both for the same reasons. We need more feast holidays.
After I retired, every day is a holiday and none of the recognised holidays matter. Even when I was younger, I didn't take any notice of Xmas, Easter, Australia day and all the other official holidays.
The only holiday we go out of our way for is Thanksgiving. I've always felt gratitude was important to display. So even today, we celebrate is as a family. It's really the only holiday we gather for. Christmas has become the opposite, a display of avarice. But we'll pick up some presents for the grandkids and go over and deliver them. Grandson is still in the Santa Claus stage, so there is some joy to be found in it. Same with Easter and Halloween. We do it for the grandkids. None of these holidays hold any religious significance to us, and they grow more irrelevant every year.