TTT

I lurk Essie on her blog Accidental Mommy. She started Too True Tuesdays. Each Tuesday she picks a topic to write about and invites her readers to do the same:
TTT! Too True Tuesday is your chance to tell the truth to the world. Forget your nicey nice voice, and screw polite conversation. Abandon the fake smile and let the little voice inside your head come out. Tell it like it is sista- fren!
I have never participated before but thought I would this week and I invite the three of you that follow me to do the same!
This weeks topic:
Your least favorite holiday and why. And just for fun and balance, your favorite holiday and why.
Oh where to begin....
Growing up my life revolved around Christmas. I would get sick to my stomach Halloween night (not from candy-mind you) with the thought of Christmas approaching. I LOVED it!! Best time of the year. Early on I started taking over decorating the house, helping my mom wrap, holiday baking etc. I-being the oldest and the bossiest-would get my siblings to sing Christmas carols at the top of our lungs in the back of my parents old Chevy Luv. (Growing up there were a few years where we rode in the bed of the truck-under a shell mind you-sitting on an old truck seat. Nope, no seat belts-but that was in the 70's. It wasn't a lack of parental responsibility or negligence to have your five children bumping around in the back of a truck in the dead of winter singing Christmas carols while you sat up front in the heated cab. Everyone did it. ) Yes, it's true that my brothers refused to sing Christmas carols before Halloween in fact each year after Halloween they remind me that now I can play Christmas music. I also wrote plays and programs for Christmas Eve and again, being the biggest and the bossiest-convinced my siblings to participate. The day after Christmas was the saddest day of the year. Realizing I had to wait another 365 days for the blessed event to happen again. I believe that I was born January 9th just to have a birthday to look forward to sixteen days after Christmas so as to not plunge into total depression and despair. That is how much I LOVED Christmas.
Is Christmas my favorite holiday now....heck no!
Nor is Thanksgiving, 4th of July or Easter. Nope.
In fact I don't think they should be called Holidays.
The definition of holiday is:
1. a day fixed by law or custom on which ordinary business is suspended in commemoration of some event or in honor of some person.
2. any day of exemption from work
3. a period of cessation from work or one of recreation; vacation.
I don't' know about you, but our holidays are not a day exempt from work!! (Just like most our vacations are not a vacations-they're more work! Especially camping with children!)
Yes, I do love getting together with my family. Eating good food, enjoying each others company but to call it a holiday, at least as far as #2 and #3 definition are concerned is an outright lie.
My favorite holidays are Labor Day & Memorial Day.
Why you ask?
Because they do not require WORK!!
There is NO pressure to make some dang huge meal!! Meals that require hours of cooking, preparation and house cleaning. (Or in the case of the 4th of July-yard cleaning and borrowing bbq's!) Hauling chairs and tables up and down stairs, assigning food dishes-hoping that your single brothers will remember to bring the chips or drinks you've assigned them (because they don't cook or have wives they are assigned things they can pick up at the store) worrying if you have enough food, too much food or if this recipe will turn out. Then everyone eats in 10 minutes flat and guess what?? It's time to clean it all up, put it all back and return all the borrowed tables, bbq's etc.
Not only that, there is no parades to get up early for and worry about putting chairs out for, no presents to buy and list of people to buy for, no special holiday cooking, dance concerts, school programs, parties, no Easter dresses, Christmas dresses, matching 4th of July shirts, no....nothing! (Unless you count flowers for the graves and even so, it's not like your dead relatives give a rat's butt if you show up ON that Monday or the day, week or month after!)
BUT with Labor Day & Memorial Day you do get a day off of work (or at least most people do-real estate agents never have day's off-months off unbeknown to them-but that's because the market sucks not because you planned on not working or getting paid for months at a time-but not specific days-unless you count the day your cell phone battery dies and you don't know and you don't get any calls-but that's not a day off because you spend the next day apologizing to everyone that left you message after message!) and the kids are out of school and no one expects you to make anything special, buy gifts, clothes or attend any major events. They are GREAT holidays and by far my fav now that I am the one doing all the planning, preparing and post-party putting back together!
As for my least favorite holiday...again, are they really holidays???