Blog Post 3

                In Translating Traditions, we talked about the decline of the importance of holidays to most people. I think this is true of many holidays as of recent. One of the holidays everyone in class, myself included, agreed upon is losing its touch is Christmas. Christmas used to be a big part of my life when I was a kid, but now I don’t care for it at all. The last six or seven Christmases for me have honestly been pretty boring. Since it feels like Christmas is becoming more of a commercial than a time to be generous, it loses its meaning and becomes boring. It is nice to give and receive gifts, but that feeling only lasts for about ten minutes in the morning and the rest of the day just becomes a typical day. A lot of my family is in Florida at Christmas, so the most that happens with my family on that day is my maternal grandparents come over to see us.

                The one Christmas that really ruined the holiday for me was this most recent Christmas. On top of initially feeling like the last few Christmases, I was sick that day, so that wasn’t fun. If being sick on Christmas didn’t seem bad enough, something terrible happened that day. My uncle, one of my favorite family members, died that day. He was rushed to the hospital in Indianapolis (where he lives) that morning, and around 11 A.M., my parents told me that he passed away. At first, it seemed like a big “Did that really just happen?” moment, but I felt sad when I realized that this was a real event and not a strange thought. On the Friday after Christmas, we had his funeral in Dover. Many people he knew from Indiana came over to mourn at his death, which made me realize how important he was to the lives of many people.

In addition to Christmas, another holiday that has lost its touch with me over the years is Easter. I loved Easter as a kid, because I thought getting candy and gifts was fun, and I enjoyed looking for Easter eggs. Now that I’m older, the concept of finding Easter eggs grew childish and boring for me, and I don’t really care about getting gifts or candy when it also happens on Christmas and it’s even less exciting here. It just feels like another big sales event for stores to take advantage of. Also, since Easter is about the reincarnation of Jesus, why did we all associate that with a bunny instead of celebrating him now?

The final holiday I want to talk about is Labor Day. It’s supposed to be a day where everyone gets off work, but stores take advantage of this to get people to come in and buy stuff on sale. This means that the store’s employees have to come to work on a day where people are supposed to be off work. It’s very flawed execution if you ask me.

To sum it up, the holidays are becoming too commercialized and are losing their purpose for a lot of people. Some personal events of mine have also hurt certain holidays as well. I just wish people could actually celebrate them for what they’re intended to be rather than getting stuff on sale.