What’s Your Favorite Holiday? Why?

Chel Owens

Since I was a younger, smaller, Chelsea, I’ve loved autumn and winter. Perhaps this is why my favorite holidays have always been the autumn and winter varieties: Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas.

In truth, my affinity for the first and last were likely tied to what I received at each.

Still, that love has persisted into adulthood. When the air outside turns cold enough to nip, a piece inside me stirs awake. I’m a reverse-hibernation animal, stretching and standing -even jumping!- when the first snowflakes fall. I associate the drop in temperature with coloring leaves, jack o’lanterns, and the excitement of trick-or-treating.

Once October passes, my memories turn to the distinct taste of a turkey meal and a thousand side dishes. I remember pies as well: pumpkin, pecan, apple, cherry, banana cream. I love them all! As we gather up the Halloween decorations and prepare to host family, I also look forward to all the loved ones I will talk to and spend time with.

Then, of course, comes Christmas. I hate the commercialism of Christmas, beginning with the first trees the stores put up in July and ending with the children’s over-hypered aftermath late Christmas morning. The spirit and feeling of the holiday, however, are what I love the most. Every year, I try to do something to bring happiness in service -the true meaning of Christmas.

Besides its spirit, I also love seeing everyone think of everyone else. My neighbors give each other presents. Most businesses decorate their fronts. We have tradition, and love, and even more time with family.

Today, Mother Nature finally accepted that it’s October. Wind and chill forewarned of her incoming wrath, followed by a severe temperature drop and even a little snow. I stood in the flurry, barefoot and smiling, as the tiny white particles swirled around me in our porch lights.

Autumn is here. Winter is coming. I’m so excited for what they will bring!

Are you? Is your favorite holiday one of mine, or do you prefer another? What do you love best about your favorite holiday?

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Here’s what I wrote this last while:
Wednesday, October 2: Wrote “Have We a Core Personality?”

Thursday, October 3: Nothing.

Friday, October 4: Distracted everyone with some funny onesies for babies.

Also, announced the winner of the Weekly Terribly Poetry Contest. Congratulations to The Abject Muse! Again!

Saturday, October 5: Introduced the 46th Weekly Terrible Poetry Contest. The theme is a spell, a witch’s brew, an incantation, etc. PLEASE ENTER!

Sunday, October 6: Shared Carrot Ranch‘s Rodeo contest. Charli will be posting a new contest each week, so enter one of them!

Monday, October 7: An inspirational quote by C.S. Lewis.

Tuesday, October 8: “Wilhelmina Winters, One Hundred Seven.” Next week will be the final, final, final, final post for Wil.

Wednesday, October 9: Today.

I also posted all last week at my motherhood site. I wrote “How Do You Dinner?,” “No Kids Allowed: The Death of the Family,” and “The Toilet Seat, a poem.”

 

Photo Credit: Image by Jill Wellington from Pixabay

©2019 Chelsea Owens

28 thoughts on “What’s Your Favorite Holiday? Why?”

  1. Thanksgiving. It’s the start of the “holiday season”. The food is good (I make it). Family gets together. The weather is crisp.

    No other holiday comes close… except maybe Arbor Day…

    Liked by 1 person

  2. Thanksgiving!! Because it’s not about greed and getting for once, it’s about contentment!! Also, fall is my favourite season and in Canada we celebrate thanksgiving at the beginning of October so it’s this weekend 😃

    Liked by 1 person

  5. Americans know how to celebrate – which is wonderful! We don’t do Thanksgiving! We don’t do Halloween! Xmas is in summer so a cold salad and a slice of ham at the beach suffices… etc. We get a couple of “Bank Holidays” throughout the year, e.g. the Queen’s Birthday. But Easter is a lot bigger here than what I experienced in North America – with almost a week off work and on Good Friday all shops are shut.

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  6. To me? Christmas, hands down. I live in the desert southwest so there’s no expectation of snow but most people seem somehow more united during the Christmas season. They’re more willing to participate wearing Santa hats and reindeer antlers on cars. And I come from a large family so I learned early on that gift giving is not a priority nor is it a requirement. We’re really not into Black Friday but we do like to walk around downtown and take in all the decorations, music, food, while enjoying each other’s company.

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  7. Easter (sans eggs) because of the unique significance and consequences of the Resurrection.

    As for sentimentality… Christmas Day or Christmas Eve when the entire family gets together. Also love Thanksgiving for the same reason… and because our family acknowledges the true meaning of each of these occasions.

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  8. Halloween, for sure! We live on a private drive and don’t get any trick or treaters, and that makes me sad. My teacher colleagues and I always planned some elaborate dress-up theme at school for Halloween. One year we were all school supplies, and that was a kick. I was the best box of Kleenex you ever saw!

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  10. Fall is my favorite season. Wish it lasted longer. Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday. While I love the reason behind the Christmas holiday I think in our culture it has become a stressful time for many and is focused so much on shopping and parties and such. But Thanksgiving requires only a turkey with the trimmings and the family can just gather together and enjoy the day!

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  11. Nice post, Chelsea. Mine have changed over the years. I was never that much into Easter growing up, but I understand it better as an adult and am in more reverence and awe of it now. Christmas has become too commercialized; they even sell the Charlie Brown Christmas trees that was supposed to be symbol against the commercialism of Christmas…. That was literally what the whole movie was about. Good grief.

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  12. “Reverse hibernation”– I quite like this term!

    Fall and Winter are also my favorite seasons, so anything in those seasons are favorites. I quite like Halloween, and I love to drown people in gifts and cookies, so Christmas/Hanukkah are definite favorites. … And since I’m more or less the only Jew in my social circles, as a joke, I give my good friends Hanukkah cards instead of Christmas cards 😀

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