Holidays?

Does anyone celebrate holidays anymore or have they just become part of a 3-day-weekend - for? SALES!

Not that I am a big fan of Columbus Day - but it used to be on October 12th and it used to be a day where most things were closed. Now it's only the day after the fat Sunday paper announces all the SALES you can go to on Monday...

Maybe because it's what I grew up with - but I liked it when holidays were celebrated on their "real" dates. Have an occasional week day off from school or work was sort of fun. It varied from year to year and broke up the week in a nice way - or at least it did for me.

When I lived in Boston, there were Boston-only holidays so one got a day off in every month except August if I recall correctly. But now even those are Mondays - like April 19th...it's permanently a Monday no matter when the 19th actually is.

Makes it easier to plan for the marathon and make it a 3-day-vacation for the crowds that come to watch and/or run.

And yes, I went to Costco yesterday as I needed a few staples and there were the Christmas trees - all lit up! Wonder where [they will find room for all the Halloween and Thanksgiving "stuff?"

Think I have mentioned this before but - I'll repeat. Again when I was a kid I worked at SS Kresge's at the seasonal counter. Yes back when sales people were behind counters running their own registers....] We did school related items from mid-August to mid September. I sort of forget what came next but then we did Halloween til November - then Thanksgiving and only after Thanksgiving did we put out Christmas/winter related items and then end of year sales and so on. And when there were no special days, we did cookies, snacks, linens or whatever needed the extra space. Seems so quaint now. And back then I could add rapidly in my head as the registers only rang up the total sale - it did not do the adding - and then we also had a tax box for the NYC sales tax! Now I am so computer/calculator addicted I'm not so sure I could do that arithmetic in my head anymore : - (

But progress in the form of computers? and word processing programs? Love it - I am a 2-3 finger typist and have to look at the keyboard as I type. So I live with spell checkers...they catch most of my typos....and I cut and past or click rather than type....

Ah - progress is a mixed thing and guess it will always be so.

We will continue to get advancing holiday seasons, 3-day-weekends, ad laden Sunday papers and the message to buy! But we will also keep getting advances in technology. It's life - enjoy it...

[but what will be the reaction when the 4th of July or December 25th become the "nearest Monday?"]