Tag: holidays

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culture life

O Remember, Remember

Cemetery
Photo by Jason John Paul Haskins

I drove through the cemetery last night at dusk to take flowers to the graves of deceased relatives for the first time in my life for Memorial Day and as I saw the balloons and flowers and the many other families doing the same I understood Memorial Day in my heart for the first time in my life.

Before yesterday I had understood in my head the purpose of Memorial Day – to honor those who have gone before, with a special emphasis on members of the armed forces who have sacrificed to preserve our liberty – but despite all the Memorial Day celebrations I’ve attended over the years it was all abstracted from my reality. I wrote about Memorial Day 6 years ago and my lack of connection to the holiday was painfully obvious when I reviewed that post today.

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culture

Happy Fireworks Day


photo credit: Camera Slayer

Regardless of how much some people may talk about the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution of the United States during their celebrations on the fourth day of July each year, and despite reports suggesting that participation in such celebrations makes children more likely to identify politically as Republicans, it seems obvious to me, based on the situations that we currently face as a nation and the fact that they have been steadily building under the leadership of both major parties, that what is really being celebrated on this day is fireworks.

Certainly some are celebrating as much as fireworks, parades, and traditional American cuisine all at once, but none of this constitutes a celebration of American independence, of our nation, or of our system of government. True celebrations of these things may only take place in the most insignificant of ways on this national holiday. Some may argue that a real celebration of our nation’s independence and of our system of government takes place at the polls each November. I would agree that voting is a real form of such a celebration, but it is only the tip of the iceberg.

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life

Halloween Tradition

Three years ago I would have told you that Halloween was the dumbest/worst holiday on the calendar. Two years ago I did say that it was tolerable. Last year if I had written about it I would have said that it was a really fun to go chat with our neighbors while the kids got more sugar than we would wish them to have. This year we started what we hope will become a tradition (and hopefully we’ll get it refined so that it works very smoothly for everyone) – we gave out hot chocolate as our Halloween treat. For the sake of helping us to remember the details – and because everybody surely wants to know the details of what we want to do for Halloween each year – I am writing how we made this work this year.

Laura made homemade hot chocolate in the late afternoon and we put it in a crock pot on “warm” sitting on a table just inside the front door. We placed an abundance of small paper cups there and then we went out for out round of trick-or-treating. I’m not sure we got it right this year, but the intent is for us to go early enough in the evening that we can catch the bulk of our neighbors home as we circle our block once – I imagine that over the years the kids will expand their range but for now once around that block in about an hour lets us see and talk to a bunch of people and is about enough for their attention. The hope is that this gets us home in time so that few if any local witches, ghouls, and goblins have come to our door before we return. Then we can see them (again in many cases) as they enjoy our warm offering as the evening gets colder. I can seriously envision having our children going out with friends and ending the evening with a hot chocolate party at our house.

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life thoughts

Fathers on Father’s Day

Over the years in my life there have been a number of men who have served as examples of fatherhood for me – unfortunately despite whatever desires I have had my own father has never been among those men within the range of my memory. As Father’s Day approached this year I thought about how disappointing that was for me to realize that Father’s Day is a completely lopsided holiday for me – it is an excuse for my wife and kids to tell me I’m great (or not – young kids aren’t always reliable about acting as the label on the calendar might indicate) but I have no inclination to try digging out my Dad’s phone number to call him up and say “Thanks for . . . something; I just can’t think what exactly it was.”

Today started out bittersweet. Bitter for the reasons cited above, and sweet to hear my kids in the other room as I woke up singing Happy Birthday to their sister who has her birthday today as well. That indicated to me that we’re doing pretty good as a family. As I think on that and the fact that all my brothers seem to be doing pretty good as fathers in their own families I have hope for the future that my grandchildren and their generation of cousins etc. might be unaware that the chain of honorable fatherhood was ever broken in their ancestry.

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life

New Christmas Tradition

Living in a wonderfully snowy and hilly location, Laura and I volunteered our house as Laura’s family began planning a sledding excursion for the day after Christmas. While we were still in the planning stages I suggested to Laura that this might be something we could do every year.

Everyone decided to take us up on the offer and so our house was overflowing for most of the day. We had a great time hosting a relatively large event for the first time since we moved. Based on the reactions of everyone who came it was an enjoyable experience for all. Our house was close enough to the sledding hills for the group to have the flexibility necessary for our children of various ages and the hills were perfectly suited to the different needs of our varied age groups. We had a great meal before hand and plenty of time to socialize and drink hot chocolate after the sledding. It was perfect. Laura and I have decided that we are definitely going to do this every year. Now that we have had the experience once we will probably expand our invitation in future years to include more family and friends to share in the fun.

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culture life

Christmas Program

As I was sitting in Sacrament meeting today anticipating the start of our Christmas program the thought struck me of how appropriate it is that we should celebrate the birth of our Savior through so much music. It seems to me that we use music more at this season of the year than for any other celebration.

I think it is appropriate to use so much music for such an important celebration because music communicates with people emotionally and intellectually in a very powerful way. In fact, it may be the generous use of music that helps to keeps our cultural celebration of Christmas so strong. While so many other holidays turn into nothing more than a day off of work or an excuse to hold retail sales Christmas has never yet been relegated to such a bleak fate. Despite any complaints by some about “Happy holidays” or “x-mas” the fact is that I have never found any holiday that carried more spiritual meaning that Christmas. Whatever of secularism might be carried by the figure of Santa Claus we still can hardly go anywhere without some display of the religious side of the season whether we are seeing Menorah’s or nativities or hearing references to Bethlehem and wise men.

An objective analysis would undoubtedly show that Christmas carries more religious significance in our secular society than any other holiday (with the possibility that Easter might rival it for religious/spiritual content). I really would not be surprised if music played a large part in keeping so much of that meaning intact.

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life

Universal Holiday Spirit

If you do a little searching here my position on Halloween could hardly be described as positive. This year as we partook of the festivities of the day I underwent a marked change in perspective. We spent a couple of hours walking around our new neighborhood with the kids. The older two would run from house to house gathering more goodies than is good for them and the younger two would generally try to keep up, but they would stay back with Laura and I as we enjoyed conversations with many of our neighbors. We would then hurry three or four houses forward to catch up with the older girls (who would have gathered candy from the intervening houses not only for themselves, but for the younger two as well) and talk to another neighbor.

After this year, I sitll don’t care about Halloween as a “dress up and gather/distribute candy” activity, but I sure enjoyed it as a “get out and talk to friends and neighbors” activity. Unlike the last couple of years we were also blessed with perfect weather this year – this is the kind of Halloween that I can enjoy, and I hope to bring this attitude into future years.

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culture

Living Memorials

Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that I am lousy about any traditional holiday celebration, but Memorial Day just passed me by without making any more impression than any other rainy day. No, I’m not bitter at having my plans ruined by the weather – my plans proceeded without any interruption. It’s not that I dislike any aspect of the holiday – I think Memorial Day is among the better holidays on the calendar.

I guess this grinch just wonders what value there is in one more day for us to have a small ceremony for an hour and then spend the rest of our lives neither thinking about those who paid the price for freedom nor working to ensure that we don’t throw away what they paid so dearly to obtain.

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culture

April Fools Day

I’m not sure exactly why, but I can never bring myself to make anything of April Fools Day. I try to be careful that I don’t buy into any of the prank news stories that float around and I certainly don’t mind the fact that lots of people have fun with this holiday, but I don’t think I’ve ever pulled a significant April Fools joke of my own.

That puts me in a quandary. I am hesitant to write anything serious lest it be ignored as a joke and I have no desire to force some wit into my writing. Maybe I can luck out like last year. I didn’t even remember that it was April Fools Day, but as I look back at what I posted I can see that it was rather amusing.

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life

The Holiday Spirit

Here’s a fun rendition of a holiday favorite.