These are the holidays that sometimes I feel like I'm of the select few who actually know why it's a day off work in the first place.
Not that I'm saying that everyone has to be Christian or anything. Not by a long shot. What I'm saying is that there are a lot of "holidays" that are being spread so thin that I feel like a weirdo going to Church on Easter Sunday or on Christmas day.
Yea, I get that Easter being the celebration of re-birth (though originally meaning the re-birth of Christ, and our own selves and thinking about making positive changes in our own lives) coincides with puppies and ducklings and baby bunnies and new flowers, but Easter time is one of those holidays that you get TWO days out of, and people don't know why. "It's the time for getting chocolate and hunting for eggs!" MMk. Find your own meaning. Maybe I'm just feeling weird because when I want to celebrate the season, people look at you like you're made out of sea-foam or something. "Huh? You go to church? oooooooook..." I don't know that I like feeling outcast for trying to celebrate the season with fewer commercial prompts. Plus, I don't think anyone gives the Jewish population the same looks when they celebrate Passover. It's what they do. Easter being about the religious motives is what I do.
And now I'm done ranting. Plus, I just polished off a nice tasting chocolate egg, so I'm feeling better.
I don't know if 'originally meaning the rebirth of Christ' is an accurate statement. I believe Easter was celebrated for many centuries before Christianity appeared, as a celebration of spring and rebirth and fertility. Hence the bunnies and eggs. I think even the name Easter stems from a pagan tradition.
ReplyDeleteIt seems Christianity, in it's bid to take over the world, merged it's festivals with long standing ones to ease the transition (and then claimed they were absolute unassailable truth). This is also why Jesus' first birth happens to coincide with the winter solstice. Religious historians couldn't even get the year of his birth right, I highly doubt they had the day pegged.
That aside, I fully support you finding meaning outside of commercialism. I would just suggest you don't need religion to justify yourself. I would suggest a more accurate and equally valid reason is simply because it brings you happiness.
Pagan rituals....yeesh.
ReplyDeleteBut I like your argument, for sure.