by Madison
I hope everyone had a restful Memorial Day weekend! Unfortunately I didn’t. As another holiday weekend door closes, I started to ponder whether it was truly a holiday. Quite frankly it actually wasn’t really much of a holiday since I took the opportunity to do more around the house and the kids were underfoot. I look back over holidays in general and they really aren’t holidays at all. Christmas holiday stands out but mostly for the kids. July 4th is another one, again for the kids. I sometimes long for days of old when holidays were really holidays, which had to be when I was in school. Yes, carefree and fun, when I had no children and no responsibilities, except school and maybe a part-time job. I realize I sometimes I get lost in taking care of family and home and truly neglect me.
What about you do really enjoy the holidays or are they just more work that you bring on yourself? Comment and enter to win RESCUE ME by Rachel Gibson or A NIGHT LIKE THIS by Julia Quinn!
***Click on covers for reviews and buy links. All giveaways for print books are U.S. residents only unless indicated otherwise.
I love holidays. They are so much. I especially love Christmas. I love decorating for holidays. It just gives me a happy feeling.
Holidays are not really holidays for me celebration wise. As I’ve aged I spend most of my holiday time reflecting on the meaning of each holiday rather than hosting/organizing parties, etc. Guess I am getting ‘old’ ;-).
I enjoy most holidays except for Thanksgiving. No one is really ever thankful and it is just a big meal that over in 20 minutes that took hours to cook. So what?! I think we should be thankful everyday and leave it at that! LOL!
At this point in our lives the hubby and I don’t really celebrate holidays. Before I was married I remember always finding an occasion to party with my friends, holiday or not. Now the longer we’ve been married the more likely we are to just use the holiday to stay at home, catch up on some sleep, or get some projects done. We both kinda hate the crowd thing and the fact that holidays seem to be about stressing out, traffic, and “must dos” more then what the holiday actually should be celebrating.
However, when we have kids I’m sure we’ll change our tunes and go all out for the holidays and give them a sense of tradition and wonder all should kids should have 🙂
I enjoy some of the holidays, but I don’t enjoy the stress leading up to them–to have everything right and perfect, to have fun things to do, to make the most of every opportunity. I enjoy the time off, but yesterday was so hard making up for it, some times it doesn’t seem worth it!
The holidays are fun! But can ware me out with the cooking and cleang. Sometimes I wish I had a fairy to help lol!my favorite holiday is christmad when the whole family comes together and enjoys the seasona
I understand what you’re saying. It’s frequently hard for the Chief Holiday Organizer (typically the mom/wife of the family) to escape a lot of the work that ensures the rest of the family is having a great time. Maybe that’s why my favorites are Mardi Gras and Halloween…less work and more bang for the buck!
I love the holidays, but I must say it does tire me out. We didn’t do much for Memorial Day. Our son was married the weekend before and we were just wore out from it all. Thanks for the giveaway.
I don’t mind the summer holidays at all. I do not like Halloween at all. And Thanksgiving; well, I tend to agree with Johanna that we should be thankful everyday.
I enjoy the holidays since I get to share them with family and friends. I usually do some of the cooking. Pies are my specialty and I love making them so glad to do it.
It had all just become a big stress mess. I think that I’m doing it to myself, though, so my husband and I have been simplifying. It’s making it all much more enjoyable again!
I always enjoy a holiday, yet it’s true that I usually wind up doing things around the house.
Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. I love that time of the year, and unlike christmas, it’s not all about gifts, and who gives who what, and how much did they spend. It’s all about food, family and friends, and the anticipation of Christmas (which I always find better than the day itself).
Holidays bring more work, but they also bring a lot more fun and family time.
Of course I love the holidays, but I’m one of those women who like to play hostess who entertains, but never cooks. If I had to bake even one loaf of bread the entire visit would be ruined. 🙂
I like the holiday and look forward to them. I try to buy everyone great gifts. And I love watching the open the gifts. I always enjoy the the holidays.
Yes and no. Holidays weren’t huge in my family but like you said, as a child at least there wasn’t a ton of things to do. My niece has 7 kids so we no longer get invited very often to family holidays since there’s just too many people. My children are grown and sometimes they have to work during the holidays so we have them when we can. Maybe if there are ever any grandchildren in the picture things will get exciting again lol.
I love the holidays, i have a huge family so its awesome when we all come together to celebrate the holidays.
I enjoy the holidays but that is because I make sure that I have at least one day out of a three day weekend where I do absolutely nothing except what I want to do whether that’s reading, watching movies, eating takeout …you name it…it has to be what I want to do not what I need to do.
I enjoy the holidays, but they are very stressful when I am cooking and hosting the party.
I do enjoy the holidays. Each and everyone because they are all spent with my family and all my sisters and their families and my parents. Plus I love the cooking for the gatherings
I celebrate holidays and decorate, but find that a lot of work. I still like the idea of them. 🙂
Holidays are usually more work than relaxation for me. Being the only girl in my family, a lot of the planning and cooking for family events is left to me to do.
I love holidays but there have definitely been some years where I was exasperated by all the work it took by me alone to create the experience everyone expected. In recent years, I have had success avoiding this feeling and having more fun myself by planning ahead and doing as much as I can in advance. I also try to remember that I am appreciated. I’m just so good that I make it look easy!
I tend to pick up shifts during the holidays, so none for me here! 🙁
I always enjoy the holidays, especially time spent with family. Thanks for the giveaway!
I do enjoy holidays, particularly because they mean family time.
I enjoy Christmas still but not really any of the other holidays. I don’t really do anything to celebrate them so they end up being just like any other day. I’m sure if I had kids though I would find holidays more exhausting and stressful.
The holiday reins have passed to my children–so I do get to enjoy them.
I like being able to relax on the holidays.
Holidays can be stressful, but it’s so great to be able to spend a few days with family and friends over dinner.
I enjoy the holidays in spite of the extra work. It isn’t too bad if you have someone to help you.
I truly love the holidays. Christmas is my favorite along with Thanksgiving. I love the decorations most. But I don’t enjoy them when they start to feel like stressful work. Thanks for the chance.
Carol L
Lucky4750 (at) aol (dot) com
I love holidays when it means I get time off from work. I don’t have a big family to have to feed, it’s basically just me, so I get to just relax.
Beverly –
I love holidays and not only because it means I have the day off a work. I love to bake and cook and the holidays are a time I can do that without rushing around trying to get everything done around working.
We try to keep holidays simple and to have meaning to them. That means a trip to the local Veterans Cemetery on Memorial to honor those who have fought for our country.
July 4th is a special day to not only honor our founding fathers but also to gather together with friends at the fireworks at the local town park to catch up and have a picnic together. We get there early to watch our grandchildren play a game of baseball together and to remember how we did the same thing when our children were young but it was our husbands we watched play ball!
On Thanksgiving we honor the members of our family who came before us and remember the struggles they had during WW II and the ones that are no longer able to join us while we give thanks for our blessings and remember the good things that have happened in our family since the last time we were together.
Christmas is always a quiet holiday where we give blessing for the things we do have and try to focus on what we can do for those who have struggled throughout the year. We can’t buy big gifts for each other so instead we try to share precious moments together and be thankful for what we do have.
In our family we try to remember the simple celebrations of our youth and how meaningful they were and pass that on to our children and grandchildren.
Holidays can be a lot of work but I enjoy them so much.
Bev,
All my life my family used to spend each holiday together, respecting each holiday for it’s true meaning. Well, other than July 4th, (we’re British). LOL. It’s the TRUE meaning of each holiday that makes each day off seem special. My favorite, of course…happens to be New Years! Who wouldn’t want to truly celebrate a new year! Bring it in right, though, be careful on how much you drink. 😉
I loved holidays so much more as a kid, all the family and great food. Now it’s just work, work, work and I have no real help in the kitchen. My daughter is a vegetarian and won’t touch anything we carnavores eat, sigh. She’s great with the table and getting everyting set though. It will be easier when my son gets married I suspect. I miss my mother and her helping hands…
Do love it no work lol, great giveaways thanks a lot
don’t have kids adding “to do’s” to my holiday schedule so I get to spend mine relaxing maybe enjoying dinner w/ family/freinds or reading a good book. Both make for a wonderful enjoyable day.
Most holidays are just another day around her unless its the fourth of July, Christmas or Thanksgiving and those bring on more work but you get to spend more time with family so its worth it.
I think holidays are exhausting. And most of them are just so companies can make more and more money. Make sure you buy a mother’s day, father’s day, grandparents day, valentine’s day card and get decor for Halloween, Easter, Christmas and buy enough food for a whole year to eat on Thanksgiving! LOL We’ve been slowing down on any shopping for many of the Holidays. My husband and I both decided against cards or gifts for Mother’s or Father’s Day this year…just spend time together as a family. Memorial Day this year was of course paying tribute to our wonderful Military members and just relaxing.
I just took it easy over the holiday and read and watched some tv.
Thanks for another great giveaway!
These books look wonderful!
I just noticed the pretty new summer picture on the top of the blog!
It looks really nice! 🙂
Holidays and vacations usually tend to be more work than fun. If you have a camp, a camper, or a boat, you spend your time cleaning and fixing it up. Same old housework and cooking, just a different location. If you are celebrating at home, You spend extra time fixing special food and decorating. Then, of course, there is the clean-up. When you belong to a large family, the work is spread out and people pitch in. It is still extra work, but not so bad. If it is just a nuclear family, the work generally falls on mom. Some of us are lucky enough to have husbands that help and do a fair portion of the work, but in many cases, they will man the grill but not much else. For single parents, they are it. they must make the plans and carry them out. Last year we were out of town for both Thanksgiving and Christmas. One of our daughters and her family were with us and we did celebrate. It was however a very low key no fuss celebration and we all enjoyed it. I missed not having the big family get together, but it was so much more relaxing and enjoyable. Of course we didn’t have any little ones we were responsible for and had to keep tabs on. It looks like we will be out of town for Christmas again this year. Too bad. I’ll miss the baking and having everyone over. I no longer work and can take a few days to prepare and a couple days to fully clean up and put the house to rights and not have to worry about getting the children settled and the house done in just a day or so.
Here’s hoping you find a way to have a relaxing and enjoyable holiday.
It depends if I’m having people over or not. Last year I hosted the family BBQ and did’n’t sit down except to eat. Otherwise I enjoy just chilling out.
I think holidays are great but they’re just too much work. By the time you’re done decorating, cooking, cleaning, maybe buying presents, you’re exhausted and just want to hide somewhere quiet. That could just be me, though.
Holidays to me is another day to get something else done on my To-Do List.
To me, all holidays are just another day. Please enter me to win the Julia Quinn book. 🙂
Once I had children and a house and pets then there wasn’t any real time off. I have found that there is no going back to those days of days of nothing to do but I am not sure that I would enjoy that anyway.
I really enjoy the relaxation of it all and the food!!! You can never have to much food during the holidays. 🙂
For some reason I’ve become the host of all the holiday parties. My husband volunteers me. I’m sick of doing all the work, cleaning, buying, preparing etc. I’ve told him that I don’t want to do this any more. His sisters, my sister and my daughter are all old enough and capable of hosting a party. I refuse to do the 4th of July. I told everyone that I am not doing the 4th. We’ll see if a party takes place. I hope so.
Wow, 2 great authors and 2 great books.
I love the holidays because I get to spend quality time with my family. Especially my extended family.
The only holidays I enjoy are Halloween and Xmas. We usually visit my mom and sister on Xmas. Holidays are disruptive and frankly I find some of them depressing. I don’t want to eat all that food at Thankgiving! lol!
I would love to win the Rachel Gibson book.
I love Thanksgiving – love the food and no stress of decorating and buying gifts. After Christmas is over, I do find it depressing, as a lot of my family members are now gone or living out of town; so it is just a small group and miss those who passed on. My mom is 92 and I don’t know how much longer she will be with us. I am trying to enjoy every day I have with her. She is well and up and around, loves to cook. Thank God. I do count my blessings to have had her that long.
Don’t mean to be a downer and how could I forget my beautiful 3 1/2 year old granddaughter. She makes the holidays special. So it is bittersweet.
I love having a chance to spend time with my kids. Sometimes I feel like I don’t have enough time to do the fun things. I start off by not getting out of bed until I’m ready. That includes reading in bed for a while before I get up if I want. Which I usually do. 🙂
Preparing for the holidays is a lot of work; and since I am older now, my family does most of the prep. It is nice to get together with them and enjoy conversation, laughter and good food.