Why do we celebrate holidays?

[JungAtHeart]

Wanted to here from some INFJ on this matter.

As an ENTP holidays boggle my mind. We're told these days are meant to be meaningful to us, most have completely lost their meaning though. They've all been turned in days to buy a whole bunch of crap. Thanksgiving, christmas, valentine's, easter, mothers day, father's day, birthdays, st Patrick's day, etc... While some bring family's together, we could easily do that without a holiday, they're completely worthless. Each time a national holiday is established they figure out how to moneterize it and we're systematically targeted to buy items that correspond with each day. That is the final product of celebrating, profit.

What if you were born and never heard about holidays? The value in them is only what were told. How did we let this happen to us?

 

[Molvas]

I agree with you, I hate how my family only gets together on the holidays which are just forms of massmarkting centered around eating,pretty much.i like Christmas though, I guess it gives people something important to look forward to and reasons to see there family.in America we associate happiness with money,so I think we also associate are family with money getting gifts eating etc.its a form of sharing a common culture ,America is a young nation so we try to define our cultural identities by the effort we put into holidays because we don't really have a lot of history to share and have a mixture of a lot of different cultures,and gives ous a way to have shared tradtions.

 

[sassafras]

We live in a consumer society. We eat, drink, breathe it. Personally, it doesn't strike me at all odd that we pick a few key days of the year to justify consuming more than usual. Considering yours is a common complaint, if anything, the sheer ridiculousness of the holidays is exactly what allows a lot of people to snap out of it and discuss how consumerist we've become. And then, ironically, go ahead and continue to do it anyway.

I dunno, I guess I don't find the holidays all that odd when you deconstruct the way we live our lives every day. If you think about it, everything that humans do is absolutely weird. Walk out onto the street and think about how absurd it is that we drive around in tin cans on wheels and invest our safety and our lives to the whims of an automated traffic light. Or that how we've all collectively decided that this little strip of pavement that is a different shape and colour to the dotted yellow asphalt on the road is safe to walk on while the rest of the world whizzes by us in two tones of metal going 50-60 km per hour.

Why do people go to church and sit in pews and stand up and sit down and sing as a collective in memory of a long dead prophet? Why did people ever decide it was a good idea to go outside in the woods and dance around a ring of mushroom at midnight during the summer solstice? Why do we go to school and study things that have no bearing on our immediate needs or that will ever apply to us? Why do we collect this thing called 'money' and pay our neighbours for goods and services instead of learning to be self-sufficient for ourselves?

Why do we do anything, really? Because it suits our purposes, be they practical, dogmatic, cerebral or emotional, on the individual and on the whole. Because we're all interconnected. We do it because other people do it. Because this is how we've learned to cooperate and coexist with one another.

 

[bionic]

I'm not a holiday person. If I had my choice, I wouldn't celebrate any of them. I just do it because it's a senseless tradition and they're the only time of the year I actually see my family. I personally don't need a holiday or any of that sort to feel thankful or celebrate what I have. Hell, I even hate all the hoopla that goes around when it comes to go to a wedding. They're so stuffy and uptight to me. I personally don't understand the need for any of it.

 

[barbad0s]

They are how some societies respond to not yet wanting certain values to slip out of our awareness. Also good for making sure people are all stimulating the economy regularly via nearly inescapable multi-generational social enforcement.

 

[Kgal]

Marketing. Lack of love. Marketing. Brainwashing. Lack of Love.

repeat endlessly

I'm old and have lived through many holidays. It's sad to see how frantic and anxiety laden it's all become. I've finally done away with all of them. This year I told my Mom and sister I wasn't coming for Christmas nor Thanksgiving. It feels wonderful to completely let go of them all.

 

[JulesK]

I'm going to be that asshole who says the holidays are great... They're an excuse to do those things. I spent a lot of years away from my family, and I do tend to enjoy just spending that day alone, but now, I know my parents are older, and it's nice to be with them while they're still reasonably healthy, and have a brandy and eggnog by the fire.

 

[Solongo]

Humans are ritualistic creatures. Rituals are part of human development and we will continue to practice some forms of ritual practices and holidays are just one form of it.

 

[ThomasJ79]

I just love celebrating life with people I love. There's a timelessness to tradition and holidays that extend beyond us as individuals.

 

[Matt3737]

I'd like to echo [MENTION=884]solongotgon[/MENTION] and [MENTION=6303]Jimmers[/MENTION] sentiments.

Tradition is constantly being reinvented which defies a common desire to connect with our ancestors and understand our roots and where we come from in some fashion.

I remember talking with a Native girl who felt her family was pressuring her to take peyote for religious purposes and she didn't want to. I didn't also want to pressure her, but hoped she might better understand where they were coming from if I told her that the experience would be beyond artificial traditions. Humans can't alter that experience or change it in the same way we might change other rituals.

I think she still decided against it, which I don't fault her for. I would as well, but only for different reasons.