The Holiday trap!

[Eagle]

Why celebrate any holidays?
If you look at the American (world) holidays such as Christmas, Thanksgiving, Halloween, Easter, New Years, ect… a lot of people will tell you that they are all pagan in nature and therefore should not be celebrated or remembered in the way that they are. Does it really matter what the origin of the holiday is as opposed to how they are remembered? If I celebrate Christmas and I do it with a heart of giving to those less fortunate then me is that wrong, if I celebrate Thanksgiving by spending a meal with my family and friends is this wrong?, if I spend New Year’s vowing to make it a better year ,is this wrong. I tend to look at the positive these special days may bring by choosing to share a wonderful experience with my family. I disregard the materialism, the commercialism, and the paganism associated with those events. Now I know you are asking yourself how Halloween would fit into that? Well look up Day of the Dead to find out.
“Happy” Holidays

Feel free to express your Holiday “Joy/issue”

[John Parslow]

Hello Dig

If you look at the American (world) holidays such as Christmas, Thanksgiving, Halloween, Easter, New Years, ect… a lot of people will tell you that they are all pagan in nature and therefore should not be celebrated or remembered in the way that they are.

Unless of course you are a practising Pagan ...

Best regards. JP

[Eagle]

Posted by John Parslow (here)
Hello Dig

If you look at the American (world) holidays such as Christmas, Thanksgiving, Halloween, Easter, New Years, ect… a lot of people will tell you that they are all pagan in nature and therefore should not be celebrated or remembered in the way that they are.

Unless of course you are a practising Pagan ...

Best regards. JP

No ill feelings toward Pagans, the management deserves the right to beg for forgiveness
No Pagans were burnt durring the making of this post!

[John Parslow]

Ha ha ha Dig - love the sense of humour. JP

[Davidallany]

Hi Dig, i do not celebrate the so called holidaysTo me there is no special day to celebrate, everyday could be celebrated. There is a Startek episode called return of the Archons people were hypnotized by a super computer. The computer kept everyone under close watch.

Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ne1renijZ8

[Limor]

No ,its not wrong to ,If you find enjoyment in celebrating holidays than why not?!

Personally I hardly celebrate any holidays,mainly because most of them are actually Holy-days,and I find very little 'holiness' in the world today.
A lot of the jewish holidays infact celebrate or memorialize a triumph over some 'bitter enemy',wether its the greeks,the iranian,Egyptians,you name it,and I am done with those mind control games,so I do not volunteer my energy to those.
However,there are nice ones like ,'tu beshvat'-celebrating nature,planting plants and trees ,very much a 'vegeterian holiday',or the feast of shavuot,wich glorifies the rejoicment of nature as well.

I guess I am being selective

[corson]

hi Dig, in my honest opinion, holidays are meant to be celebrated; to give us a break from the every day grind. i'm all for it! i could care less about most of the origins, they have faded with time. what's important is how you have celebrated with your family over the years and what traditions you have begun for your children for them to celebrate with the passing of time. thanksgiving and christmas are my favorites. i love to be surrounded by family and friends and regale in the season. there's nothing better.
warmest regards, corson

[enfoldedblue]

For me the pagan roots are the only thing that lend the holidays a little bit validity. TPTB took the holidays that were about people's deep connection with Nature, Spirit and eachother, and corrupted them in to shallow rituals, that these days revolve largely around consumerism (one of the ways they did this was by demonizing paganism). If people can find deeper meaning in the holidays today, I think that's great! Thanks for posting Dig, I think this is a great reminder of how we can use the holidays as special days to focus on our connection to ourselves and our fellow man.

LOVE ALLways, c

[Eagle]

Posted by enfoldedblue (here)
For me the pagan roots are the only thing that lend the holidays a little bit validity. TPTB took the holidays that were about people's deep connection with Nature, Spirit and eachother, and corrupted them in to shallow rituals, that these days revolve largely around consumerism (one of the ways they did this was by demonizing paganism). If people can find deeper meaning in the holidays today, I think that's great! Thanks for posting Dig, I think this is a great reminder of how we can use the holidays as special days to focus on our connection to ourselves and our fellow man.

LOVE ALLways, c

Most followers of nature were all demonized, pagans, druids, wiccans, Native Americans.....the list goes on

[leavesoftrees]

Posted by Dig (here)
Why celebrate any holidays?
If you look at the American (world) holidays such as Christmas, Thanksgiving, Halloween, Easter, New Years, ect… a lot of people will tell you that they are all pagan in nature and therefore should not be celebrated or remembered in the way that they are.

Holiday = holy day

on a holiday you should do something to return yourself to wholeness.... to recreate yourself

some people might find that pagan

[Fred Steeves]

Posted by Limor (here)
No ,its not wrong to ,If you find enjoyment in celebrating holidays than why not?!

Personally I hardly celbrate any holidays,mainly because most of them are actually Holy-days,and I find very little 'holiness' in the world today.
A lot of the jewish holidays infact celebrate or memorialize a triumph over some bitter enemy,wether its the greeks,the iranian,Egyptians,you name it,and I am done with those mind control games,so I do not volunteer my energy to those.

Limor has summarized my feelings much better than I could. Last year for instance was the first year we didn't contribute to the chopping down of trees just to have one in the house for a little while at Christmas. This year I feel more uncomfortable giving my energy to the lie that is Thanksgiving. We will be having the big dinner with some friends at their house, so I reckon this can be a very subtle thing.

[Loveisall21]

Good thread. I was actually thinking of starting a thread about the holidays myself. I wanted to try and articulate how I felt about them and see if others out there might feel the same way.
I don't have any issue with pagan origins of holidays. It's too bad Thanksgiving is such a white wash (no pun intended).
My issue is mostly with christmas. My feeling is that it just feels so old and stale. I think to myself, really? we're still doing this? reindeers and elves and trees in our living rooms? Jesus's Bday? really?
It just feels like it should already be from a long ago age. The other thing I don't like is the pressure people feel to buy gifts when they can't afford them. Aunt Judy got me something so I have to get something for Aunt Judy. What's real about that? But that is what goes through peoples minds every year. It feels like another construct of control and it just feels so phony.
The other thing is how depressed some people get every time around the holidays because what they don't have become's highlighted for them. If everyone decided to cancel christmas I would'nt mind in the slightest.

Having said all that I don't mean to offend those who really love christmas. If it genuinely makes you feel more joyous and you have special traditions that make it very special for you, that's wonderful. I'm only speaking of my own personal feelings.

[shamanseeker]

I agree with the above. It's also very important that workers get their holidays. In Britain there are very few holidays and when I lived there I felt really tied. In Italy, we have many more holidays (I'm not saying Italians don't work hard: they do! Contrary to what people generally think, they are very hard workers but they also know how to relax and enjoy life as well).

It's important in my opinion that people are allowed to take time off and enjoy life so that life does not always revolve around the rat race.

[WhiteFeather]

Great Thread, I totally agree with you on this. Yes The Horrordays are upon us. Enjoy your family, thats the most important to me. Bah Humbug!

[sunflower]

Corson's take on holidays resonates with me. Family days, enjoying each others' company.

[mariposafe]

I agree with pretty much everything everyone's said.

Since leaving the UK in 2006, a realisation has slowly come over me. I lived in Peru for 1 year, where they have the usual pseudo-Christian holidays, plus a few more, which were mostly good fun to celebrate, as they involved people getting together and parading. 2007 saw me move to Kazakhstan, where I had my first working Christmas, which was a little strange. I've been in China since 2008, and worked the first 2 Christmases, but the second one was no big deal. The point is that now, I've completely integrated myself with the local festivities; Chinese new year is a perfect substitute for Christmas and new year together, and there are a whole host of other days which, although not holidays as such, are days when families get together and do communal things. For example, there's tomb-sweeping day, when families go off to tend to the tombs of their ancestors (a walk round any English cemetery will show you the value of that custom), and there's another day in August when families get together to remember and honour their dead relatives by burning paper money and saying prayers.

So I think joining in the local festivities really helps you feel connected to wherever you are and, to answer the OP's original question, I think that the important thing is to do whatever it is with heart.

[modwiz]

Posted by Limor (here)
No ,its not wrong to ,If you find enjoyment in celebrating holidays than why not?!

Personally I hardly celbrate any holidays,mainly because most of them are actually Holy-days,and I find very little 'holiness' in the world today.
A lot of the jewish holidays infact celebrate or memorialize a triumph over some bitter enemy,wether its the greeks,the iranian,Egyptians,you name it,and I am done with those mind control games,so I do not volunteer my energy to those.
However,there are nice ones like ,'tu beshvat'-celebrating nature,planting plants and trees ,very much a 'vegeterian holiday',or the feast of shavuot,wich glorifies the rejoicment of nature as well.

I guess I am being selective

Thanks for pointing out the obvious in the word holiday. It derives from Holyday. Without a sense of Wonder and connection with/to Spirit a great opportunity is lost in an orgy of consumerism and gluttony. We finally get some downtime and a chance to be together and all sense of the common bond in Spirit is seldom a focal point of these days. The term Namaste, I acknowledge/see/recognize, the Spirit/holiness within you, is a perfect word for the kind of focus a holyday would have. I say, make everyday a holyday and then let's just have some feasts and party during the turn of certain celestial cycles or auspicious human endeavors.

Dig, you did want contributions, yes?

[Limor]

Posted by mariposafe (here)

to answer the OP's original question, I think that the important thing is to do whatever it is with heart.

Mariposafe,I really think you should go out more and see the world,it might provide you with a better understanding of the various customs and holidays celebrated in different countries

All in all,your last comment,I believe,contains the bottom line.

[Eagle]

Posted by modwiz (here)

Posted by Limor (here)
No ,its not wrong to ,If you find enjoyment in celebrating holidays than why not?!

Personally I hardly celbrate any holidays,mainly because most of them are actually Holy-days,and I find very little 'holiness' in the world today.
A lot of the jewish holidays infact celebrate or memorialize a triumph over some bitter enemy,wether its the greeks,the iranian,Egyptians,you name it,and I am done with those mind control games,so I do not volunteer my energy to those.
However,there are nice ones like ,'tu beshvat'-celebrating nature,planting plants and trees ,very much a 'vegeterian holiday',or the feast of shavuot,wich glorifies the rejoicment of nature as well.

I guess I am being selective

Thanks for pointing out the obvious in the word holiday. It derives from Holyday. Without a sense of Wonder and connection with/to Spirit a great opportunity is lost in an orgy of consumerism and gluttony. We finally get some downtime and a chance to be together and all sense of the common bond in Spirit is seldom a focal point of these days. The term Namaste, I acknowledge/see/recognize, the Spirit/holiness within you, is a perfect word for the kind of focus a holyday would have. I say, make everyday a holyday and then let's just have some feasts and party during the turn of certain celestial cycles or auspicious human endeavors.

Dig, you did want contributions, yes?

My friend to me this is what the forum is all about, sharing experiances, ideas and beliefs. there are some things posted here that i never considered before, now my knowledge has one again expanded thanks to my friends here.

[araucaria]

On the subject of giving the workers a break, the carnival principle was designed so that they could let their hair down in various ways, the better to crack down on them the rest of the time.

To this extent, the very dichotomy work/play-rest will no doubt be abolished when we get free energy and all the rest.