Columbus day ignores the primacy of Indian culture in the west.
Valentine’s and St. Patrick’s days honor saints, as does Santa Claus, and Halloween (all hallows’ eve).
May day went out when the reds stormed the Kremlin.
All the construction paper cards my mom has in her keepsake box are from dethroned holiday projects.
There isn’t much “kid-friendly” anything left. Adults have even taken over and organized their playground games, such as baseball and football.
What do you mean by “kid-friendly”?
If you’re looking for secular holidays that are widely celebrated, there’s still the 4th of July and Thanksgiving.
And, of course, all the school holidays: Veteran’s Day, Memorial Day, President’s Day, Birthdays of various presidents, Martin Luther King Day, Pulaski Day (is Pulaski nationwide or only in Chicago?), etc. Kids, in my experience as one and having one, don’t give a rat’s ass why they get the day off, it’s a day off and that itself is what’s worth celebrating.
This may be a stupid question, and for that I apologize Pliny, but what does anything in your OP have to do with whether or not a holiday is kid friendly? Actually, what do you mean by kid friendly to begin with?
Marc
How is Christmas NOT kid-friendly? It’s all about kids! All the kids in my family are guaranteed gifts–as it should be. You can’t get more kid-friendly than Santa Claus. My head is overheating just trying to figure out what the hell you’re talking about.
Easter isn’t about honoring a “saint” (as if this means anything anyway). And despite it being the holiest of Christian holidays, it’s almost as kid-friendly as Christmas. Easter egg hunts, Easter pagaents, Easter bunnies and their candy-laden baskets—all for the kids.
Valentine’s Day is more geared towards adults, but don’t kids still have Valentine Day parties? I know my classes did and they were a blast.
And no comment about Halloween. I mean, if you can’t see how Halloween is “kid-friendly”, I can’t help you at all.
The question that’s more substantive is why do people feel the need to have everything be “kid friendly”. Should I, as a single person, weep that the whole world is not a Chuckie Cheese?
I assumed the OP meant holidays that used to have a loose structure have become more organized, and sometimes the rush to organize comes out of paranoia and overprotectiveness. For instance, wrt Halloween I’ve heard that the razorblade-in-the-apple story is little more than a UL, but many parents won’t let their kids trick-or-treat because they could possibly get tainted candy. So instead of going out trick-or-treating with a loose gang of neighborhood kids, as they did in the relevant Peanuts special, these kids end up being taken to big organized parties. I had to drive along the road that runs through Santa Monica Airport one recent Halloween, because I thought it would be a good shortcut to avoid some traffic. But it didn’t work out, because it seemed that scores of cars were arriving for one of those big parties, with parking confusions, traffic “ushers” waving those long flashlights to direct traffic, and so on. It made me sad to see that, because I think those kids were missing out on what was really supposed to be fun about the holiday.
I have no idea of what the OP is talking about as well. I tried to figure it out and failed and my brain is a little more scarred because of it.
I gotta agree with that - for any kid, a day off of school is a thing of joy.
Lessee, what else do we have? Valentine’s Day - I assume kids still exchange valentines, and eat those candied hearts with “Be Mine”, “You Cutie”, etc. on them. Easter can be celebrated with or without the mention of Christianity; chocolate rabbits and eggs are more like fertility symbols than Resurrection symbols, anyway. What kid doesn’t like to watch Fourth of July fireworks? I don’t know about your neighborhood, but in mine, trick-or-treating kids are abundant; the main difference between now and forty years ago is that parents are right there, if the kids are preschool-age, or walking along the street while the kids walk up to the house, if the kids are older but still of trick-or-treating age. Thanksgiving is a family holiday, and family holidays are almost always kid-friendly. And what’s Christmas without little kids whose eyes light up when they see the tree, the presents under it, and finally, what’s in the pretty boxes?
(Pulaski Day is celebrated in places with a substantial population of Polish descent, for obvious reasons, but isn’t usually observed elsewhere.)
Exactly. Even to this day, I’m happy to cancel a class or a section for Yom Kippur. Out of respect for students of the Jewish faith, and the nice ancillary benefit of a day off.
Which is why I never could understand the logic of Arizona voting down the MLK Day holiday. Hey idiots, guess what? You can still go to a Klan rally that day if you want. You just don’t go to work, or get mail that day.
Regarding the OP, I have no idea what s/he’s on about, so maybe s/he’ll return and clarify.
Oh poor baby! Your brain’s scarring will subside with booze; check it again after the office party.
To be more clear, what the OP is saying is probably more of an MPSIMS type gripe than a debate.
Seems like when I was a kid there were holidays every month that are now not holidays. Washington and Lincoln got combined with the likes of Herbert Hoover and Calvin Coolidge. Taking the fun out of it. No more simple moral lessons about cherry trees and walking miles to return a few pennies - those turned out to be myths.
The local school dumped valentines and St. Patty hats and cutting shamrocks in art class.
Thanksgiving also took a downgrading, and the pilgrim tale, of the 18th century re-telling we all knew, are gone as myth.
Flag day no longer honors Betsy Ross, another disputed figure.
No May pole.
So the OP is an elegy for lost innocent youthful pleasures, and a question as to what did/should replace them?
Treacly, rose-colored memories, apparently?
Boy the way Glenn Miller played…
Talk like a Pirate Day! ARR!
Folks?
This is supposed to be Great Debates not Pit lite.
Since even the OP seems to think that this is more of an MPSIMS thing, I’m going to move it there, but anyone who feels a need to be nasty about it should probably head for the Pit with a new thread.
[ /Moderating ]
Songs that made the hit parade,
Gee our old LaSalle ran great
Those were the days!
(Hey, somebody had to finish the verse! :))
Uh, what’s Pulaski Day? Fight my ignorance. (My mom’s family is Polish, but we don’t live in the North.)
My bar’s owner, Gabriella, is related to him.
Betsy Ross is disputed? Say it isn’t so.
Except, I’m afraid, you didn’t quite get it right:
*Boy the way Glenn Miller played
Songs that made the Hit Parade
Guys like us, we had it made
Those were the days
And you knew where you were then,
Girls were girls and men were men
Mister we could use a man like Herbert Hoover again
Didn’t have no welfare state
Everybody pulled his weight
Gee our old laSalle ran great!
Those were the days!
(They re-recorded it because that line about the laSalle because a lot of people couldn’t understand it. Me included. I thjought it sounded like someone addressing an Italian phrase to a ladt: “Giarola, Sarah Gray”)
I used to think he sang, “By the Weyglan Miller plate”. I thought, “Who is Weyglan Miller, and why is he on a plate?”