Do you do traditional things on holidays?

[tzhu07]

With the upcoming July 4th holiday, I feel like I've grown tired of fireworks. It's just not as exciting as it used to be. Yet people will always have "Watching Fireworks" as a to-do item.

It's like people do the same things every year. What if we re-invented what we're supposed to do on certain holidays? Or are we just creatures of habit, and we just do things because that's what you're supposed to do on certain days?

</random thoughts>

 

[Jessica Lares]

It would be interesting to do something different for a lot of these holidays. Fireworks probably make more sense for weather reasons, and that's why it continues being that one main thing people shoot out on the air instead of hot air balloons, kites, etc. And they're probably cheaper too. It's easier for the general public because all they have to do is show up to see them without even a little planning too.

We usually just sit around the house. I don't care about fireworks either, but other than maybe having a nice meal, and getting stuck in the middle of a parade, it's the most fun thing that is going to happen all day. People are too tired for anything else.

For other holidays it's the same thing, sitting around, and food. But we don't do turkey on Thanksgiving because my parents don't like it.

 

[maflynn]

We have our traditions and the 4th is one of them. We usually go to a cookout and from there watch the fireworks in our town. We've veered away from that on occasion and if you're bored with what you do, by all means mix it up.

As for other holidays, being married with kids, we usually have keep things moving, i.e., one year we'll have Thanksgiving at my house, another year at my mother's house, another year at my sister-in-law's house.

Christmas is pretty static for us, visit family on Christmas eve, and Christmas, we work hard at making sure that holiday isn't too crazy since I want it to be enjoyable for my kids.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

Well, I suspect that the love of 'doing traditional things on holidays' on family holidays comes, mainly, from children. That is, those kids who dwell in the regions between early-ish childhood and teenage years.

In other words, between the the time when they are laying down a kind of sentient memory - kids treasure family myths and traditions, and there are few beings more conservative that a child wedded to what he or she thinks are immutable family holiday traditions - and the teenage years when they rebel vehemently against what they view as tired and unimaginative traditions.

 

[ThinkDifferent24]

The only thing I don't like traditions is because everybody else is doing it so there's so much traffic. A group of friends actually went camping the week before the 4th because they knew it would be packed. That's my kind of thinking!

 

[Tomorrow]

We don't go watch fireworks; we light up the sky ourselves.