Forums » Smalltalk » Anyone else hate holidays these days? (RANT!)

I'm only twenty-something, but I'm very super old school. Actually I have dreams about being a woman in old China, where holidays, tradition and family were well known and respected. It's who I am and it flames my burning hatred for today's views on holidays. "Oh boy presents! Yay!" Yeah little Timmy you can shove that new red toy truck up yo--- *Cough* Eh hm. Am I the only one that thinks schools should be educating people on the historical origins of holidays? Someone out there (And I hope I don't offend anyone, honest!) is pretty much destroying tradition and a lot of it benefits hard core Christians. Seriously, look some of the holidays up. A good number of them have ties to Pagans. Religion aside, history is slowly being lost and with it ourselves. As we slip further from our roots we lose respect for everything and I feel that it will be our downfall... So, I get so annoyed around the holidays anymore, because I find them to be a bit pointless anymore. *Sigh*

(Mobile) im a pagan hun, i understand. still, u can make it right in ur own home. I have great holiday season recipes i could share with u to respark tradition.

(pt2) thats the way tradition lives. Imbuing it in family to survive and spread to friends, ensuring it isnt forgotten. Make the day your own, and begrudge not those who know no better.

(pt3) i find setting an example to be the best action. Being angry changes nothing and is an endless cycle. If angry over that, why no anger over ignorance of the names of the days of the week? The examples i have set for misrepresented gods have been very effective, as have holidays.

(end) it can be intimidating speaking such things openly. If u can ignore scorners u will find there are far more ppl like u and i, tho--and many openminded who just only knew judeochristian immersion.

Not trying to be rude, or provoke you, but blaming hard core Christians might get some peoples knickers in a knot. At least that is how I took your phrasing to mean. Minerva is right, everyone has their own traditions and keeping it alive in your own family is always really important

I think what you were really meaning to say is that you hate a lot of the commercialism that comes with the holidays? I'm totally with you on that one. Sometimes I feel really terrible about gifts for friends, and have even been told "This is my present?" before. But then I think, they really should be grateful that I cared enough to get anything. I was always taught that when it came to gifts it was the thought that counted. I also think Valentine's Day is a ridiculous holiday, made up by women who want candy lol. I'm of the firm belief you should tell your loved ones you care about them every day, not just on one day because the holiday told you too

concurred on every front. Presentation of beliefs is v important if u want others to listen. I kinna ignore v day and tie a lil of it into imbolc.

I celebrate the original valentine's day, the Lupercalia

I have to agree with Loki on that one!

Do I hate Valentines Day? Heck no! Regardless of whether or not I am Christian or Pagan or Athiest, or Single or Taken. Personally, I don't mind the commercialism. All this great candy comes out. And the day after Valentines Day? Ugh, man, the chocolate is so cheap. Give it all to me. I am that woman who wants candy. Damn straight. Give me heart shaped candy.
Do I think they should teach original starting of holidays in schools? It depends on the school or the denomination of the school. We shouldn't exactly force things people don't want on them.

I personally prefer Palpatines Day

THIS.


Also I'm Christian. I celebrate Easter and Christmas as Christ's birth and rising from the dead. Everything else is just fun to me. No, we don't need to have chocolate bunnies or fancy wrapped presents to celebrate Christ, but it's still something fun we do. In my family we actually have a little tradition of my parents hiding the Easter baskets and we have to search around and find them.

And on St. Patrick's Day, the same thing. My mom leaves little pieces of paper that have hints, as if they're written from a Leprechaun. We have to follow the hints and find the goodies she bought for the holiday! And when I was a little kid, I would take a shoebox and make a 'house' for the leprechauns and put some Lucky Charms cereal in it. Then when I woke up, the house would be messy, the cereal would be gone and there would be little footprints!

It is all just so much fun. I think I'm going to do this with my kids when I have a family of my own, because I've made some great memories with these holidays.

I completely agree with all of you. I don't care if a get a new car or just a pair of old socks. That's not what Christmas (or other winter holiday) is for. It's for showing that you care to those around you and celebrating the religion or tradition that the ORIGONAL holiday was based after. Christmas time I see ads for every toy imaginable but noth ing on a hand made manger scene or something. I've had Christmas with my super Christian grandparents and the most Christian thing they did was pray. people rarely even do that these days. Personally weather it's Christmas, Hanakah, Quanza, or other holiday I don't care about the presents or candy, just the thought, the cheerful family time,(and the after holiday sales). Even if we didn't celebrate tradition in the home it should at least be educated at school by the CHILD's choice. I would love to learn more about quanza or any other holiday. That doesn't mean I have to celebrate it but it would be fun to know. Besides, My moto is knowledge is power.

hell, i have a still running winter holiday thread concurring w alot of those ideas, raven. Its semiopen btw. close friends so far but temple doors are always open.

Why am I not surprise.

LOL! Dylan, you make me laugh. Maybe I just am so against valentines day because I'm super allergic to chocolate. I do love those little candy hearts though, you know the ones with the sayings on them...hmm...something to think about!

And Celestina, those traditions sound like so much fun! I bet you loved them as a child. When I was really little, I'd leave cookies for Santa, and also carrots for the reindeer! When I got up the carrots would be gone and the cookies had bites out of them! Haha.

And of course you do Darth

...Loki, suddenly a certain cabinet-pillager you know having interest in you makes total sense.

Sorry guys if I offended, I'm just like huge on history. When I say super Christians I meant those people that chase you down on the streets and show up at your house unannounced and the "If you don't pray fifty times a day you'll burn in Hell" ones. We have a lot of those here. I feel that when we don't remember why we started the holidays, we lose important life lessons that history has taught us. Oh and I hate chocolate. Not allergic, not lactose, just hate it unless it's flavored really strongly of coffee and even then it takes me a month to eat one bar. I prefer my snow cones and Angel food cake, yummy and cold. I have no qualms or hatred of other religions just to clarify in case it's in the back of someone's head. But things have become so commercialized anymore that it makes me a bit sad. Last night was a depression night (So much going on, too little energy, lack of cuddles from my hubby) so disregard any hostile-esq ranting from my first post.

I don't think anyone was offended. Everyone here's pretty chill. You'd also be surprised at the amount of pagans on this forum. There was a religion thread I made about a month ago that had surprising results!

Traditions still live on in many ways. Even if Christmas has become commercialized, the primary attributes we still carry on follow the old ways. Yes, Christianity has sort of done the borg thing. many cultures have been absorbed into a conglomerate while things viewed as distasteful were replaced or eliminated.

Tell the world that the great god Pan is dead.

But as per the statue on my altar of him consoling Psyche (in what was the origin of the beauty and the beast story), I definitely feel otherwise. The old ways are only dead if you allow them to be.

Yes, the Sun may have been replaced with the Son, but celebrating that standard isn't necessarily bad, either. I know, I know, Jesus was actually born in early summer. But in a way, he was a dying and seasonal god just like the others that were originally revered. Falling him into the cycle with Christmas/Yule and Easter/Eostre is only all the more fitting. In my viewpoint, Pan actually respects the Christchild and sees no reason to resent sharing the day with him.

Personally, I am trying to combine many beliefs to give my daughter a broad spectrum to choose from as she gets older. Ironically, Santa is the most difficult thing to include without mucking up the other works!

Currently the idea is that the Sun gives us life and warmth, and makes the plants grow, so in different seasonal times we play close attention. When the Sun goes to hide, we respect the Son--who comes during the darkness and protects people with warmth similar to the sun. Then there was old Saint Nick, who we call Santa, who goes about and does work for the Sun and the Son since they are very busy, and deliver gifts to the world just like the Son did.

...This is gonna get interesting as she gets older. I don't want Santa's exit from reality to become a trauma that makes her disbelieve everyone else, so we have to plan when we tell her about it and how to inform her: My ultimate idea is that the idea of Santa, the Sun and the Son is in all of us, so we can all be Santa. We all have the ability to make things a little bit brighter.

That's how tradition runs at our house.

Also Valentines Day was commercialized but always had gifts. There were older, similar rituals but Saint Valentine was executed. Many people miss the chapter of history that, after he was killed, his lover found the gifts he had laid out for her--which in a way reached out from beyond. It's another day to ensure we stop forgetting what has value in life. If you participate in the other holidays, it ends up being far more than just one day.

To me, holidays are very, very special. They are also often private events that are just for close family.

I've always functioned under the assumption that all the stuff portrayed on TV is just advertising, and that each family has its own traditions that are meaningful to the people involved, and that those traditions aren't necessarily for the whole world. Regardless of whether those traditions have their origins in religion or are more individual to a family. And the fact that I didn't always see all those traditions just meant they were getting on with them inside their own homes with their closest loved ones the same way I was doing. Which to me, was how it was supposed to go down.

So I never saw all the commercialism as indicative of most people's reality, just the public, non-specific component that of course businesses are going to do.

As a point of interest, we celebrated an RPR specific holiday last December called The Festival of Being Excellent To Each Other. During that "holiday", I released kudos, and we had a lot of fun finding ways to spread the warmth and welcome around.

Joking about Palpatines Day aside, this is actually how I view holidays too. I'm not a religious person but I still celebrate Christmas because it's a time to get together with family and close friends.

The festival of being excellent to each other was great in December. Not to rush through the year but I look forward to the next one