1) extra costs.. food, decorations, presents, costumes, cards
2) storing the decorations the other 11 months of the year
3) the endless preparations and discussions
At first holidays seem like a fun and pleasurable experience; especially when someone else is doing all of the work. Then I remember the above 3 reasons and I cringe. Moving abroad helped to eliminate some holidays, at least for a few years. My in-laws rarely bothered to celebrate Thanksgiving, the Dutch didn't really understand Valentine's & Halloween, and Christmas, well my husband & I never bothered to decorate. But times are changing, unwillingly I might add. Mostly adding a child to the family changed things. People expect you to decorate and make a big deal about holidays, kids love it.
Sure as a kid it's great, you do no work and you don't foot the bill either, ideal! You just enjoy, enjoy, enjoy, but becoming an adult ripped the fun right out of it. I hear some adults actually still get pleasure from the holidays, for example, my in-laws love Christmas. Which makes it even harder to be the Scrooge of the family. Maybe I'd enjoy holidays if they were simple. One present per person on Christmas, everyone bring one dish of food to Thanksgiving, and instead of buying a costume for Halloween the kids just wear something they already own. Oh yeah, and no more cards! No more celebrating because some commercial holiday was created, how about celebrating your love because you love someone, not just because the store tells you it's the 14th do something romantic! Again, did I mention the costs. Between divorce and marriage in the family, at Christmas time alone we have to buy presents for around 14 people, that's a lot of money. And the kids (I'm not talking about our family alone) don't appreciate Christmas (or birthdays), because it's become present overload.
And now that we're a part of an international play group, holidays like Easter & 4th of July are being reintroduced, c'mon, I can't do it all. You're probably asking normal questions right now, like... don't you enjoy seeing the city decorated for the holidays, don't you like receiving presents, don't you love the honey glazed holiday ham, don't you get pleasure from the glimmer in your child's eye during the excitement? Yes, yes, yes, and yes. So I guess there's a little bit of humanity left in me after all, ha-ha. (Sorry for the rant, but it's mid-October, and Halloween, Thanksgiving, & Christmas are quickly nearing!)
I understand your point, but I do like the holidays because we try to get together as a big family. But we try to keep it simple, specially these days...
ReplyDeleteI do agree with your statement "celebrating your love to somebody because you love them and not because some store tells you".