What is your favorite Holiday, and what (if anything) do you do to make holidays special?
It was no big surprise that since we conducted this poll in December, that Christmas would end up being the big favorite! I wonder if the results would have been different if asked another time of year? Probably not, there seems to be something magical about Christmas, I guess!
Here are the results in more detail:
58.3% Chose Christmas
20.8% Chose Thanksgiving
8.0% Chose Halloween
4.0% Chose Valentine's Day
4.0% Chose April Fool's Day
4.0% Chose Mother's Day
0% Chose any other holidays
The following are some comments we received:
Thanksgiving is my favorite. I like getting together with family, love the food, and I especially like that it is still one of the few holidays that hasn't gone completely commercial (as Linus would say!).
Halloween - I enjoy dressing up my son in costume and spending time with him carving his pumpkin.
Christmas is our favorite holiday, because it is Jesus' Birthday. The kids enjoy making party decorations, doing for others and reading from the bible in preparation for the coming event.
Valentine's Day - I just like it because it's a romantic holiday. You aren't pressured to buy everyone gifts and really I don't care if I even get a gift on Valentines day. I just like to be alone with the one I love and spend some quality time.
We celebrate both Christmas and Hanukkah
in our house we decorate for both. I have always enjoyed Christmas since I was little. Such excitement for the kids to think that Santa came in their house and gave them gifts that they wanted. I love to see the excitement on their faces.
Christmas is my favorite holiday because I like giving presents to people and seeing them happy.
Christmas - It is about the only time I get to see extended family (which is sad) but we are so spread out and this is the time to play catch up. We meet at Grandmas house on Christmas Eve and have a big celebration which includes oyster stew and chili!
I love Christmas because it is spiritual! Christ our Savoir was born and the whole world over celebrates! People are happier and more friendly during this season and I love the special spirit. Each year my Grandmother gives each of her grandchildren and ornament. Now that I am 22 years old I have 22 special ornaments to decorate my tree with.
Christmas is such a wonderful opportunity for families to come together. Even when stressful, these visits may be the only time we see our loved ones, or hear from those who are too far away to visit. There are so many opportunities to invite those into our homes who don't have families of their own. I think this keeps us grounded, and reminds us why we celebrate this season of giving.
I always make sure my kids that are big kids now (23 & 15) do not know what they are getting for christmas. We always have a real tree. I do not put anything under the tree until my son goes to bed.my daughter comes home and spends christmas eve with us, and her and her family wake up and santa has come. So her kids are having the exact same christmas she had as a kid, and still to this day her and her brother wake up at four or five am. The grand kids have to be woken up. Christmas is a great time in our house. Year after year...we all love it.
We spend Christmas Eve watching cartoon movies about the holidays and starting the junk food fest. I love putting the kids to bed and filling the stockings with the presents but my favorite time is listen to the kids giggling and shouting (even if it is 5am) when they see Santa's footsteps (made from talcum powder...we don't get snow) leading to the presents. The favorite time for my hubby is when Santa goes around our neighborhood on the back of a flattop truck at 7am throwing lollies to the PJ'd kids on the side of the road. We're just big kids at this time of year.
I love the Christmas season. I like to have our decorations and tree up and decorated by the first week of December. My son 9,decorates most of the tree while I put on the Christmas music and serve hot chocolate. It is necessary to have my son help with the tree and other decorating because I'm in a wheel chair. I think because my son participates so much, I think he appreciates his cosy decorated home. He doesn't take the decorations for granted. I am in the process of researching Danish Christmas traditions that I might like to make our own.
April Fools Day is my favourite day because my daughter was born on this day in 1997. She will be 1 year old on this coming April Fools day. To make it special we plan to have a birthday party for her. It is going to be great, I hope.
Thanksgiving is my favorite Holiday...even though I am thankful every day of my life and am truly blessed with a wonderful daughter and family...it is when everyone comes together and has a feast and gives thanks for all those wonderful blessings in their lives. Every year, I usually do most of the cooking and have everyone over to get together, eat, laugh and have a good ol' time!
I live in Maine and the rest of my family lives in Massachusetts. My husband, my son and I moved up here from Mass. 5 years ago, and this is the first house I've owned. After so many years of my aunt putting on all the holiday dinners at her home, we decided to start having Thanksgiving dinner at my place. Initially, it was (for me) the biggest thing I've ever done!! You know how it is; timing is everything! Planning the meal, preparing it, and making sure every part of the turkey dinner is served on time is not the easiest thing to do. My oldest sister comes up the night before to "assist" me in peeling veggies, getting the snacks together, dressing the turkey, etc. Alas, after five years now, I've almost become an expert. I'm not stressed out any more, and my sister's assistance is hardly needed. But she comes anyway, and we have a lot of laughs. Then on Thanksgiving Day, my family arrives, bearing hugs and tender smiles, and, of course, much praise for the cook!! I indeed have so much to be thankful for.
Christmas is my favorites holiday, we get together my kids, the daycare kids (I own a daycare) and all my nieces and nephews and we make christmas cookies. It is always a lot of fun and the kids love it!
I'm actually Jewish, but hubby is Christian, and my exposure to the holiday was mostly through his family. Something about the condensation of all the holiday spirit into one morning where you are totally focused on people other than yourself, for me it's my kids, makes this holiday and all the preparations my favorite time of year. This holiday is made special simply by the amount of time I spend thinking about other people and picking the perfect gifts (I start browsing in July for Xmas, I love gift shopping for others so much). This year, mommy was completely blindsided by the Xmas spirit in the toy stores, and spent way too much on my younguns. But their faces on Xmas morning made it all worthwhile. Santa does everything Xmas eve, lays out the gifts, fills the stockings, and decorates our tree. The best part of all this year was when my 4 year old came yelling into our bedroom at 7:45am Xmas morning "Guys, GUYS!! Santa just put lights on our TREE!!" Nuff said, I think. :-)
I love Thanksgiving because of all the food my sister-in-law puts out every year. Plus the whole family is together for a meal. I get to do the desserts, so I try and do a different one every year.
I just enjoy spending Christmas with my family and friends...I go to Midnight mass to listen to the choir sing! That makes me feel good and it also brings home the true meaning of Christmas! :)
Its really hard to just choose one but I have to choose Mothers Day because if I wasn't a mother none of the other holiday's would be as special as they are!
Halloween is my favorite holiday. I love to dress up and get my daughter all dressed up. Plus it helps me teach her that everything that may seem scary is not always as bad as it seems. I think it has helped her fear of monsters and other things that go bump in the night. We dress up and hand out candy.
This holiday is most special because it is the most relaxing to me. It is an opportunity to focus on family and not be distracted by other activities. It allows time for reflection and appreciation of family and all the wonderful things that life offers. Other holidays or either too brief or too hectic to permit this restful and thoughtful time.