Holidays are a unique time in my home.  For starters I am pagan, thus I don’t celebrate traditional holidays like Easter.  Secondly we have no children, so there aren’t holiday celebrations for them either.  Lastly my boyfriend doesn’t celebrate any holidays or even birthdays.  This creates more of a lack-thereof situation when it comes to holidays in my home.

D’s lack of celebration isn’t unique to him; his brother is the same way.  Neither of them celebrates any holiday.  D actually gets a little upset if someone tries to force him into celebrating.  I can totally see that though; I’d be pretty mad too if someone foisted an Easter celebration on me, when that time of year I’m celebrating Ostara.

So needless to say, in my home holidays are no different than any other day.  For me personally I may do a private religious ceremony or get together with a couple friends to do one, but other than that we don’t do anything.

My family (eg – my mom, step-siblings, etc) does exchange gifts however, so that necessitates me participating in that.  My mom is the type who can’t understand how someone can live in a way differently from her, so she plans on getting D a Christmas present, even after I explained that he doesn’t celebrate.  She feels that he shouldn’t have to go without getting something.  So that’s certainly going to be interesting.

I have to say that the winter holidays are my favorite though.  I love the warm feeling I get inside when I think of families getting together and visiting each other, spending time together, etc.  However, I strongly feel that it shouldn’t take a special holiday for that to happen.  So many families go so long without seeing each other and they hold out until the holidays.  Now, I can see that if you’re very far apart, however even before I moved to San Francisco I would only see certain family members only on holidays.  Yet they’d say how much they missed me and stuff.  If it’s so important, then you should make time outside of holidays to visit family.

One thing that actually gets me quite upset is how much emphasis is put on Valentine’s day.  I’ve seen so many couples fight, people get hurt, relationships even end because someone (usually the guy) doesn’t do things right, or big enough.  Why on earth do you need to have this special day to show your lover how special they are to you?  In my opinion if you feel the need to do something special, then do it.  Why wait for a day that someone else made into something special?  Make a day special for you and your lover.

Really, I think the only holidays I have are actual holy days; the days that are holy in my spirituality.  I find commercial holidays to be not much more than an excuse to get people to buy things.