Hapy Holiday!
In the last week, we have celebrated the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the presidential inauguration of Barack Obama and the ongoing festival of Rush — all this after we have just traversed a time known as The Holiday Season because it is overstuffed with celebrations. This is all fine and good until competing holidays start to detract from each other and the true meaning of each is lost. For example, do you put up your Christmas decorations during Thanksgiving? We have become addicted to the holiday drug, and just like an addict jonesing for a hit, we have filled the calendar with events to get our fix.
Each year, our addiction starts with New Year’s in January and moves on to some of the holidays I mentioned above. February might be the shortest month, but it has Hallmark Day ... I mean card, candy and flower day ... No, I mean Valentine’s Day. It also holds President’s Day and Groundhog Day. March sees St. Patrick’s Day and the NCAA basketball tournament, which might as well be a holiday because no one does work on those days anyway. April usually brings Easter and, more importantly, the Easter Bunny and chocolate instead of the risen Christian lord. If the Easter Bunny has its own holiday and Santa Claus has his own holiday, how is it that the Tooth Fairy doesn’t have her own holiday?
By May, we move on to Cinco de Mayo and Start of the Summer Day, which is traditionally called Memorial Day. With June comes Flag Day, which Mr. Burns found to be a day for true love. Our national birthday occurs on the Fourth of July, not to be outdone by Canada Day on the first of the month.
T.S. Eliot wrote that “April is the cruelest month.” Well, I think it’s August because despite my exhaustive research I couldn’t really find a holiday during the month. So, I’ll use this opportunity to point out the universal holiday, the birthday, which can be celebrated during August and all other months, for that matter. September brings End of the Summer Day, which is shortened to Labor Day on calendars. Of course we save the best for last with the commercialized hat-trick of Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas rounding out the year in October, November and December.
My point is that we use this cornucopia of holidays to break up the year as if we cannot stand the monotony of everyday life for more than three or four weeks. Of course, there is a comfort from the celebration of the days that mark the events of our lives. But I fear the danger is that we get caught up in a cycle, just like in “Groundhog Day,” where all the holidays begin to run together, become very generic and lose their traditional meaning. Days meant to be a commemoration of the past just become another blip on the radar or mark on the calendar as we whiz on to the next one. We look forward to the three-day weekend more than we think about why we have the day off in the first place.
When I was a little kid, I used to count down to Christmas and other holidays by marking off the days on a calendar, but really I was losing the present in anticipation of the future. Much in the same way, I think we sacrifice the beauty of the present for a future celebration of the past.
Similarly, a quick tour through Facebook reveals no shortage of events and parties, which I believe underscores another aspect of our addiction to holidays: the need to celebrate. Most of these parties are themed or attached to a birthday or other special occasion as if we need an excuse to celebrate. I think this is a dangerous aspect of holidays: We go about our business and peak only at holidays. Instead, I think we should take a page out of the Feb Club playbook and aim to celebrate each day. By taking each day as a blessing we can aim for a constant joy in life away from the peaks and valleys of our addictions and learn to live in the present. That way we can relish holidays for their meaning — not simply as an excuse to celebrate.
Oh happy day!
John’s column runs biweekly Mondays. He can be reached at j.gregory@cavalierdaily.com.
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