Daily writing prompt

What is your favorite holiday? Why is it your favorite?

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What is my favorite holiday? At one point in time, this would have been easier to answer. The year in which I received a Gameboy Color with Pokémon Gold, Christmas was my favorite. The collections of year spent wandering my best friend’s neighborhood and returning home with sacks full of candy, Halloween was my favorite. It also helped that I have always been in love with ghost stories and horror movies. The year I discovered how beautiful fireworks could be while I spent time with family, 4th of July was my favorite, only to be easily abandoned once I learned the negative consequences of said fireworks. As an adult, I learned that post holidays were the best because it meant holiday merch, and thus candy, was on sale. That’s easily ignored, however, when you don’t eat candy, nor do you have any inkling to spend money on things not needed (such as holiday decorations.)

As time passed and I grew, holidays seemed to evolve with me. Due to the environment in which I was raised, holidays were a rather stereotypical affair growing up. My mother, like most matriarchs, was the driving force that kept us on track as we celebrated with family similar to how you’d see in typical holiday movie. One year, however, my mother decided she didn’t want to do it. It was as if she had finally grown tired of pushing and pulling us along for something that not even she enjoyed anymore.

After that, everything changed. We stopped going to mass family gatherings just because it was expected of us or to ‘make appearance.’ My sister and I had always felt like outsiders among certain family. Not only did we have nothing in common with them, but it also felt as if we were always looked down upon. So for us, we felt liberated, no longer being forced to associate with people we felt couldn’t have cared less about us. And holidays became private affairs, shared with only those we truly loved and cared about.

To be honest, I can’t tell you what holiday is my favorite because, frankly, I don’t have one. To me, despite my upbringing, holidays mostly feel like just another day of the year. Christmas romance is still among my favorite and I love Halloween horror marathons, be it movies or video games. My family has annual events where we go watch Christmas lights and fireworks that I look forward to every year. At the end of the day, I am just grateful for every day I get to spend with the people I love.