A few years back, writer Peter Mandel, in the Providence Journal-Bulletin pointed out that among other holidays, even Thanksgiving and Christmas have dimmed in recent years. It's as if the "thanking" part of Thanksgiving has been lost – buried, perhaps, under mounds of goodies.
Mandel recounted how the early settlers saw the day as chance to give thanks for the autumn harvest. Many today don't even take time to even thing about where the mashed potatoes, corn, and pumpkin pie come from and what live would be like without all this good and filling food.
Once, Christmas was a purely religious holiday. Now, in too many homes, it mostly means Santa Claus and stockings, sleigh bells, and candy canes with seemingly little or nothing to do with the birth of Christ. Christmas has been turned into an unrivaled buying and selling fiasco. And, if you think about it, Christmas has become so over marketed and watered down that many only call it the "holiday season".
Mandel asks, "Why?" He believes that there is surely something more behind this than the wish to include those who celebrate Hanukkah or those who look ahead to New Year's Day. He also asks, "Could it be we are emphasizing the word "holiday" to convince ourselves that what we have still fits the holiday definition? The sad truth, he adds, is that as we merge "holy days" of various faiths, as we confuse the ways in which we celebrate, we also lose our once-treasured traditions and links to our past.
Take time to make time to consider if you've lost the heart of your holidays.
Judy Warmington, Woman Time Management (owner) -- Busy wife, mother of three adult/married children, grandmother of 10 (5 boys and 5 girls!), former high school teacher (M.A. from W.M.U.), Speaker, Author, Radio Personality, and Trainer of Professional Organizers.
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WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO THE HOLIDAYS?
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