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The term Holiday originally referred to a consecrated day, a religious festival, a day of grace. Skipping the reference to religion, it described a day put aside to reflect on something bigger than us, a god, a saint, a hero; it memorialized someone or something we admired and/or we were grateful for, it reminded us of contributions made by truly evolved humans beings to our humanity and of how they advanced us by their example.
But the term slowly but surely changed through the years and in 1937 it flourished as a greeting for: “Happy Holidays!” Camel cigarette adds made it widely popular as a Christmas greeting. It became an exhortation to relax, to do nothing, to just let the lungs do the work.
It later morphed into a non-working day devoted to reap the blessings of shopping and sales-hunting. Nowadays the holiday greeting could very well be: “It’s a Holiday, shop till you drop”… sort of thing.
There is nothing wrong with that if that is what fulfills us, what makes us better people, closer to our friends and loved ones, if it is what turns us softer and less judgmental, more benevolent and truly happy. Maybe that is your experience of the holidays, but it is not mine.
Yes, I do like to have fun and I like to enjoy with my family and friends and give and receive presents and savor mostly great foods, and see everybody smiling a lot –hopefully.
But yet, we are missing the point as we strip the sacred aspect of the Holidays. In so doing we miss the opportunity to reflect on what it is that we are celebrating, what greatness names the Holiday we are enjoying, and how we can bring it into our awareness to make it ours, so that it can guide us to evolve into a greater version of ourselves.
I am not trying to water down the holidays. I am yes, trying to bring together with the shopping and the turkey and the pies, the original sanctity of the Holidays. I want to ascend them to their original meaning so that we become aware that we can indeed incorporate the attributes we gather to celebrate and enrich our lives.
Thanksgiving is past now, it is 3 full days gone by now, but since I still have my laptop jammed with Cyber Monday “attacks”… I would like to take the opportunity to reflect on Gratitude once again.
Gratitude is the direct path to grace, to happiness, to wholeness, and to peace. That is what Thanksgiving can remind us to bring more of into our lives.
Happy Sacred Holiday Season!!!!
Love and Light,
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