So I worked until 4 am last night and when it came time to go to Easter service this Sunday I opted to sleep instead. My family was quite okay with my decision except for my sister. My parents told me that she was really mad that I didn't go to church and that I "don't value holidays." Like I said my parents were fine with me sleeping in as they know that I fall asleep in church even on a full nights sleep (stupid narcolepsy). They explained this too her, but my sister is incredibly stubborn when she gets on her high horse. This lead to a day of venom filled comments. She made it very clear that she never got a C in college or her entire life when we were discussing grades at Easter lunch and she called me music snob for not listening to the radio (I'm just so sick of radio companies and their practices...) and a movie snob for my comments that Miss Congeniality 2 was completely worthless and that I felt Ice Age: The Meltdown wasn't as good as Ice Age. It was quite unpleasant all day.
But it did get me thinking. I don't value holidays any more. It may be the product of growing up in a consumer culture but I believe holidays only exist to make a profit. Christmas is about buy, buy, buying. So is Thanksgiving (It's the prelude to the oft toted "busiest shopping day of the year", not to mention all the football games and their add saturation). Easter is all about the candy. Peeps, jellybeans, chocolate. Same for Valentines. Except that on Valentines you have to throw a card in too. And those are the big holidays. Mother's Day and Father's Day are even worse. They have lots all traces of the good nature that spawned them. Holidays are the special days of the year that we hold in high esteem to shop for, and you'll have a hard time of convincing me otherwise.
But you say, what about real meaning on Christmas and Easter? The birth and resurrection of Christ? I don't see any connection anymore. There is a gulf of difference between what Christmas is and what it should be. I haven't felt that "special magic" on Christmas or Easter in ten years. At least. As I lost my childhood innocence I lost what made these Holidays something that had meaning. And as tasty as jellibellies and chocolate bunnies are, they're not what make Easter special.
And don't even get me started on Church. I gave it the old college try, but Church doesn't do it for me. For a long time I've felt the act of going to church to be a hollow and empty one. The monotone reading of scripture and hymns seems so dead and lifeless. At least gospel churches have some energy in their faith. And I've yet to hear a sermon that wasn't barely tied to the gospel and not filled with banal advice that doesn't apply to my life at all.
A great example of this: When I was a kid at the end of Christmas Eve mass everyone would get a candle and the pastor would shut all the lights off. Everyone would sing "Silent Night" as they pass the flame from one candle to the next. Slowly, magically, the room would go from complete darkness to a twilight glow that embodied everything special about Christmas. To me, it was the real maning of Christmass that those TV specials touted. These days it's apparently far too dangerous (even though there has never been an accident in the history of Northglenn United Methodist Christmases), so while we still light the candles, we do it with all the house lights all the way up and, of all the indignities, the words to "Silent Night" projected onto a big screen! The gesture of lighting candles is so damn meaningless in the light of overhead fluorescents. And who the **** doesn't know the words to "Silent Night"?! It's all so shallow.
So yeah, my sister was right. I don't value holidays. I find them artifacts of bygone morals, perverted and twisted in to a consumer's dream come true. Gone is anything special they might have once represented, and they are, in my humble opinion, not even worth getting out of bed for.
Except for Saint Patty's day, because: drinking.
What do you think?
But it did get me thinking. I don't value holidays any more. It may be the product of growing up in a consumer culture but I believe holidays only exist to make a profit. Christmas is about buy, buy, buying. So is Thanksgiving (It's the prelude to the oft toted "busiest shopping day of the year", not to mention all the football games and their add saturation). Easter is all about the candy. Peeps, jellybeans, chocolate. Same for Valentines. Except that on Valentines you have to throw a card in too. And those are the big holidays. Mother's Day and Father's Day are even worse. They have lots all traces of the good nature that spawned them. Holidays are the special days of the year that we hold in high esteem to shop for, and you'll have a hard time of convincing me otherwise.
But you say, what about real meaning on Christmas and Easter? The birth and resurrection of Christ? I don't see any connection anymore. There is a gulf of difference between what Christmas is and what it should be. I haven't felt that "special magic" on Christmas or Easter in ten years. At least. As I lost my childhood innocence I lost what made these Holidays something that had meaning. And as tasty as jellibellies and chocolate bunnies are, they're not what make Easter special.
And don't even get me started on Church. I gave it the old college try, but Church doesn't do it for me. For a long time I've felt the act of going to church to be a hollow and empty one. The monotone reading of scripture and hymns seems so dead and lifeless. At least gospel churches have some energy in their faith. And I've yet to hear a sermon that wasn't barely tied to the gospel and not filled with banal advice that doesn't apply to my life at all.
A great example of this: When I was a kid at the end of Christmas Eve mass everyone would get a candle and the pastor would shut all the lights off. Everyone would sing "Silent Night" as they pass the flame from one candle to the next. Slowly, magically, the room would go from complete darkness to a twilight glow that embodied everything special about Christmas. To me, it was the real maning of Christmass that those TV specials touted. These days it's apparently far too dangerous (even though there has never been an accident in the history of Northglenn United Methodist Christmases), so while we still light the candles, we do it with all the house lights all the way up and, of all the indignities, the words to "Silent Night" projected onto a big screen! The gesture of lighting candles is so damn meaningless in the light of overhead fluorescents. And who the **** doesn't know the words to "Silent Night"?! It's all so shallow.
So yeah, my sister was right. I don't value holidays. I find them artifacts of bygone morals, perverted and twisted in to a consumer's dream come true. Gone is anything special they might have once represented, and they are, in my humble opinion, not even worth getting out of bed for.
Except for Saint Patty's day, because: drinking.
What do you think?
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