2 posts tagged “holidays”

Ever since I was a kid, I've considered the last four months of the year as "the holiday season".   Starting with Labor Day, the holiday season includes Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and ends on New Year's Day.

Despite the fact that the beginning of September also meant the beginning of a new school year, I looked forward to the holiday season every year.  I still do now, especially because the holiday season means the end of hot summer weather, which is yet another reason to celebrate.

Many people lament "rushing the season", but I always cheer up in late summer when I see Halloween items appear in the store, knowing that summer will soon be over.  And, like a little kid, I still like seeing the first Christmas decorations on people's houses, though they appear earlier and earlier every year.

And this year is the earliest yet.  I saw the first house with Christmas lights on September 1st.  That's right, September 1st.   Within a week, I saw a second house similarly lit.   But even though it's amusingly early, I still smiled to see it.  After all, it's my favorite time of year.

Thoughts?

When I was a kid, the towns I lived in always made a big production out of the Fourth of July.   There were outdoor festivals, public and private barbecues, parades, and the town always sponsored a fireworks celebration, usually held at the high school football stadium.  

When I was in high school, I was in the band, and we marched each year in a parade that culminated at the Revolutionary War battlefield in my town, which was across from the southern end of Philadelphia, near the Navy Yard.  It was a good time and I always enjoyed doing it.

And the year of my high school graduation, 1976, was the biggest 4th of July celebration I'll likely ever see in my lifetime, as it was the Bicentennial Year.  I have to say that the City of Brotherly Love, Philadelphia, really outdid itself that year and I remember being quite proud to have graduated the year that I did.

Over the years, I've seen the celebration of this holiday slowly decline, though the town I currently live in still put on impressive fireworks displays as recently as the mid to late 90s.  I remember taking my son to the annual fireworks show down by the lake, at which half of the spectators watched from their own boats in the lake.

That's long gone, now, unfortunately.  Last night, there were no public fireworks celebrations whatsoever in my town, nor any parades or public barbecues.   The holiday passed relatively unnoticed, barring some obnoxious kids throwing firecrackers at passing cars and people in yards lighting sparklers and bottle rockets.

A shame, really.