Holidays and Anniversaries

[vakkotaur]

A recent post, protected so I won't bother linking to it, brought up a bit of how people treat anniversaries and holidays differently. I find I tend to recognize them, but I'm not too big on holding to exact dates for things. I think that came about from sharing, or perhaps not sharing, a birthday.

My sister and I have the same birthday, separated by five years. This wasn't planned, so we have been told. She claims, or at least once claimed, that somehow I had stolen her birthday. She is five years younger than I am, so I don't see how that could be.

The result was that when we were kids there had to be two cakes, at least. Generally what would happen is that we'd each have a cake on a weekend, and it would two different weekends. I forget how gifts were handled, but what I think happened was that we'd each get something on each weekend, probably by visiting different sets grandparents on each weekend.

The result of this is that I don't consider the exact date of my birthday to be important. I had to explain that once when someone sent me something and it didn't arrive on or before that date. The sender seemed to feel bad about it, but it simply wasn't important. That the sender thought to send at all, that was important. Even that wasn't necessary. It was just nice.

If I do remember a birthday - other than my sister's - it isn't because I really remembered it, it's because I looked at the calendar in the office. I made notes of folk's birthdays and wrote them down and now mark up the calendar before putting it up. Sometimes I still miss things. Nothing's perfect.

Last year Jay and I visited my folks for Thanksgiving and his folks for Christmas. My folks and my sister and I simply moved Christmas to Thanksgiving and that was pretty much that, no big deal. In fact, I rather liked that - it got things out of the way and I got (most of) my Christmas shopping done before the wretched "Christmas shopping season" which I find to be overcrowded and far too loud. It was amusing hearing the news reports on how the shopping was and such and not caring one little bit as it had been taken care of already.

Comments

[jdm314.livejournal.com]

I'm always so disapointed when the occasion is over, that I tend to enjoy getting late gifts.

[bronxelf-ag001.livejournal.com]

I locked the post because I have enough people gossiping about my personal life as it is. No need to add fuel.

I think what bothers me so much is the idea that this "should" matter-- but emotionally, I feel nothing. I know that woe fucking betide you if I neglected to wish my mother and stepfather a happy anniversary, or not make with the phone call at the right time. My mother always insisted on gifts for him, but not for herself. Sadly, she's far easier to buy for.

My birthday as a kid was always a clusterfuck- it's the last week in August-- at the very end. Sometimes it falls on Labor Day weekend. As a kid no one was ever in *town* during my birthday. My mother used to hold my birthday parties in June, which always bothered me, since my birthday is *not* in June, and it just always seemed dishonest to hold them then. I stoppped even attempting to deal with my birthday when I turned sixteen and learned the answer to the ageless question "what would happen if you threw a big party that 55 people promised to attend and no one showed up?".

But the anniversary thing is different. I have several friends who look forward to going away to "insert location here" and who cheerfully discuss their romantic getaways. The part that worries me is that *none* of that seems appealing to me. I would rather go to NeoCon than Hawaii. I have *never* gotten an anniversary gift in four years, and although I tease Mike about it, I just dont *care*, either. And I mean that quite literally-- I have no reaction at all. No emotional value is placed on this thing that somehow "should" be important. But it's just not. And I don't think it ever will be. What is amusing, though is that I feel the same way about ALL holidays, with the exceptions of NYE and Halloween. While Mike understands about the anniversary thing, since he shares the sentiment, he *cannot* conceive of why it is I could *NOT* possibly care less about *ANY* "Family" holiday.

[vakkotaur.livejournal.com]

I did not intend to pull your post into the open, and I do recognize the difference between our posts. If you like, I will mask this followup thread.

I think I can see some aspects of things, but figure I can't see all. My folks once used my sister's and my birthday to avoid a cousin's wedding - even if I hadn't been involved, I'd have quite understood that one. It was, as far as we could see, Trainwreck #2 or maybe #3 for him.

I can only assume NYE is rather more special for you than anything I have ever been used to. But I quite understand about Halloween. It seems to be the one holiday intended to be, or hijacked into being, fun rather than stuffy.

[bronxelf-ag001.livejournal.com]

no no. You mistake me. I was just explaining why I had locked it. :)