Holidays

Christmas time is just around the corner and here is where I shall write my complaint towards the holidays. I am in a love-hate relationship with holidays. Yes, this includes you Presidents Day! Not really. I am just talking about the commercialized, "biggy", thankful holidays. Such as Valentine's Day, St. Patrick's Day, Easter, Fourth of July, Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc. etc. etc. One might ask: Why, Alex, do you have such a relationship with these holidays? I have a multitude of reasons about why I dislike/like these holidays. They are found below!

     It is not just the commercialized spending aspect of these holidays that I feel such disdain for them. No, no, no. It goes a bit deeper than that. It goes into the psychology of people during the holidays and the attitude change amongst people during these times. 

     In society, I do not see people just give out random presents for the heck of it. The world would be far too great of a place if people actually cared about others on a daily basis. That is why we have holidays. You get those few times a year where you try and make up for all that bad habits and dirty deeds you have done. That is why I truly dislike holidays. Nobody makes such a big deal about feeding the homeless until around Thanksgiving. Nobody makes such a big deal about giving toys to tots until around Christmas. It is such an awful thing that we do not have these important issues brought up on a daily basis. We completely ignore the problems of society and focus on selfish pursuits for the rest of the year instead of worrying about others. 

     It is quite hard for me to fully articulate how I feel about this topic. I think it is wonderful that people actually will spend a few days a year worrying about the problems of everybody else. But I think that it is awful that people only spend a few days a year worrying about the problems of everybody else. A book that, although small, made a huge impact on my life is A Little Christmas Story. It is about a little blind boy who really knows the true meaning of Christmas and shares that warmth and joy to the embittered director of the Christmas Pageant. When he thinks about Christmas he thinks about presents. But not in the way that we all think about presents. He says that he can't imagine how awful it would be to have nobody to give presents to, especially on Christmas day. Can anybody imagine what it is like to have nobody to give presents to?

     So we give our presents a few times a year and never show our true appreciation for another human being until the holiday season comes around again. I feel like a broken record with how often I am reiterating the same point but using different examples. This world needs to be more kind to one another on a daily basis. Not just on holidays. 

     With that, I say happy holidays to everyone! I hope you have a wonderful new year to come. Stay safe, and all that good stuff.