Chocolates
Chocolates have been a way that my family counts down the days until Christmas for several years now. We have those calendars that are full of chocolates and each day (starting with December first) we get to open one of the doors and have a piece of chocolate.
Chocolate seems to be a popular way of celebrating other holidays too though. For news years every year we get chocolate covered strawberries, for Easter there are chocolate eggs, Valentine's Day has the traditional flower and chocolate candy gifts associated with it. And of course there is Halloween which is a holiday filled with chocolates and candy in general.
It sometimes makes you wonder how people used to celebrate holidays, before they got so decorated with candy and decorations and characters (like Santa and the Easter bunny). Holidays used to be about religion or a celebration of something with your family and friends. Now we have made it into such a big deal that sometimes I feel like people have lost its meaning among all of the extra stuff.
For Christmas, kids are often focusing on getting presents and decorating the tree and getting time off of school for the holiday and the snow and all of the other fun things that go along with that day. But people don't focus on what Christmas is really about so much anymore. Even my family is guilty of going to church less and less every year. We get caught up in the gift buying and shopping and having time off of school to hang out with our friends and we forget about the real meaning.
The fourth of July is another example as well as valentine's day. Both of these holidays seem to be caught up in either fireworks (a lot of kids don't even know what the fourth of July is) or for Valentine's Day the stress of having someone to buy a gift or get a gift for or actually doing the buying is stressful. People are making more of a deal about the little things then what it is actually about.
So I think this coming year for New Years Eve I am going to make a resolution to not get caught up in the extras and the little things, and to focus on what really matters and counts, like spending time with the people I love and celebrating together. Because without your friends and family what really makes a holiday?