S/O Crotchey old woman...what holidays?

Look, all I want out of life right now is a snow day. Forget about the gift giving holidays.

*blushing*

I was one of those over-doing it for the holidays at school moms. Why? I have no flipping clue, but I did it all the time. I was, in a word, obnoxious. OMG, the other moms must have hated me. No shit, I went over board and did the cutesy foo-foo holiday crap. And this was before Pinterest so it was just my craziness to blame.

So Valentine's Day is Saturday and the boy a) has a girlfriend, and b) won't be here, so I have no one to bake the cutesy little mini-cupcakes for. 

Sometimes I make myself tired.

LOL!

I like "lesser" holidays and I like doing a little something special for them *sometimes*, and I think that's what keeps them special. Some years you do something extra, others years you don't.

But I don't crazy over them. All of that turns into a lot of time and effort and stuff that I don't want to deal with. I keep trying to simplify Christmas, so no way I'm going to build up others in its place.


DS is sending his store bought Valentines with the little tattoos that came with them. It gave him 21 chances to practice printing his name in a small space, which I like, and it's Batman, which he likes. No treat bag is going to be attached. Because I'm lazy. If other moms send goodie bags, my son will love them, and that will be very nice for him.

I used to work in Chicago every February for a couple of weeks and the state of Illinois takes Lincoln's Birthday AND President's Day. Two Mondays in a row! In California, we only get one.

When I was a kid my mother always made green food for St. Paddy's Day. I'm 50, so that's nothing "new" to me.

I prefer holidays that involve chocolate.

I know y'all don't care being Americans, but I would LOVE to celebrate Matariki (Maori New Year) in New Zealand. New Year's Day is a paid day off work. Why isn't Matariki?

Businesses in the UK still think they have some scope to try and make certain days bigger it appears! They are now trying very hard to make Valentines Day and Halloween into something much bigger than they have been traditionally here. Our Mothering Sunday, held on the fourth Sunday of Lent not in May, is more and more called Mothers Day so that giving gifts bigger than the traditional bunch of flowers can be promoted.

And recently businesses here have been taking on board 'Black Friday' - and then moan later that their Christmas sales figures were down!

That also makes me crotchety!

If you lived near me, I would come over and eat mini-cupcakes!   Long live the foo-foo!

Ok, I'll admit it. I made goodie bags for my son's class. I tend to go overboard because as a child, my mom would never do anything for me. She was always too busy with her job. Now my kid will probably grow up to hate me, lol!

Halloween. Hallmark actually sells Halloween cards now. WTF?

I'm in CA and now they tend to give them 2 days off but as a 4 day weekend. Better for vacation spots that way.

Me too! I long for a cold, snowy day to stay home in my jammie's, read and cook delicious things. 
It's supposed to be 63* here tomorrow!

AND, in a former life I was that crazy holiday Mom too! My kids always had shirts to commemorate every situation, homemade of course! 

I am not trying to flame any American traditions by any means, but I am saddened to see some of our native traditions slowly being replaced by traditions kids pick up from American tv-shows. We have a LOT of American/English tv-shows on tv over here, so kids naturally get influenced. When I was a kid in the 80's we had never heard of Halloween. Because that is not a tradition here. It has become on now though. And every year you can literaly SEE that it has grown bigger from last year. Which is great news for me personally, cause I LOVE LOVE LOVE Halloween I Love scary movies, witches, vampires and candy, so it's great! But our own Scandinavian tradition of going door to door dressed as little santas singing christmas carols, collecting candy and leftover goodies, in the days between Christmas and New Year's, is almost non-existent now

I don't mind new traditions arriving, but they seem to take the place of the old traditions, which I find sad.

And also, we celebrated Mother's Day last Sunday. When I was a kid we used to make Mother's Day (and Father's Day) cards in school to give to our parents. It was always a nice day in school when we got to make those cards! But they don't do that in school anymore, because families aren't always a two-parent household anymore. So to make sure not to offend or upset kids that don't live with/have contact with one or both of their parents, have multiple stepparents, live with grandparents, live with fosterparents etc..... they just don't make those cards in school anymore. I know a kid who says he has six parents! Not sure of what happened there, but I think he was raised by grandparents but still kept in contact with bioparents and their new partners, so he has six people he considers parents! It sounds like a loving (maybe a little confusing) environment, but this kid would be severly pressed for time if he was making Mother's Day cards for all the people he refers to as a mother

And I will fess up to being a Pinteresttrawling, Halloweencrazy over-the-top mother I throw the BEST Halloween parties, I go the FULL Pinterest on that sucker

I LOVE "the Full Pinterest".   Great phrase!    Please come back and share.... Or share your Pinboards... The next time that you go the Full Pinterest!

 You made me Laugh