Should we treat the Fourth of July like Frederick Douglass?
Most people exercise their rights on the 4th of July; maybe a little excessively with the drinking and fireworks, but they legally have the right to if they are of the correct age. I myself am a huge fan of fireworks. The 4th of July is supposed to be a time of celebrating our independence, but I think it's become a competition between girls to see how many likes they can get on a picture of them in high waisted American flag shorts.
A national holiday has been turned into an extreme social event. This can so be seen with Christmas. People spend thousands of dollars on material gifts all while forgetting that Christmas is the celebration of the birth of Christ. For the people who don't celebrate Christmas, it's the season of buying MEANINGFUL gifts for their loved ones.
In response to my question above, maybe we shouldn't treat national holidays as a day of sadness, but maybe we should try to make them less of a social event.
I agree that holidays are not celebrated for their main purpose, probably because the world is becoming materialistic or because people do not consider traditions that important to follow anymore.
ReplyDeleteI actually wrote something very similar to this on my blog this week! People tend to forget the meaning of holidays because society doesn't reinforce its significance. I don't think celebrations need to be as extravagant as they are on Independence day if people don't understand why they are celebrating.
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