It is the time of the year for holidays. Some are secular, like New Years or the Winter Solstice. Others are religious like Christmas or Diwali. Whatever the reason for the occasion, many nations and religions celebrate a holiday at the end of the year.
However, the exact meaning of the holiday may vary within culture, religion, or even household. Each individual assigns their own meaning to their own special day.
With that in mind, what holiday(s) do you celebrate? What does the holiday mean to you? How has that meaning changed over time?
Related questions: What makes a tradition? What is your favorite holiday? How important is ceremony? What is your favorite childhood memory?
My three favorite holidays are, in order of personal significance, Thanksgiving, New Years Day, and Christmas.
As I stated in an earlier post, I love the idea of thanks-giving as a ritual. It is profound and rewarding to think of the people who mattered most to you during the year and then actually reach out to them and give thanks. I feel we humans don’t do enough of giving heartfelt thanks to those who matter most to us. The time around Thanksgiving is a great time to rectify that.
New Year’s means a lot to me as well. Not only is it the day I place my seed orders for the next gardening season, but it’s also when I finalize my written reflections of the past year as well as the goals and habits I want to accomplish, develop, and/or continue in the year to come. As I’ve noted on my mental health blog, Prone to Hope, 2019 has been the best year of my life, I look forward to the reflecting I will be doing over the next week or so and finalizing it all, so I can work on building a better me in 2020.
Lastly, while I am an atheist now, I was raised Christian. My family celebrates Christmas; the trappings and traditions still mean a lot to me. I get a lot out of gatherings of family and friends around the time of Christmas. I love to give and receive gifts. And, while my waist size would say differently, I love nearly all the treats my family made or makes to “yummify” the season. Rebecca’s homemade strawberry bread and pumpkin bread with chocolate chips, as well as my Mom’s chocolate oatmeal cookies are the tops in my book.