Not just the Fourth of July.
Call it so if you like--sometimes even I am too tired and lazy to use four-syllable words, and I enjoy them more than I should--but don't forget what it's supposed to mean. Remember the reason for the season.
Easter ain't just about eggs and candy, Christmas ain't just presents and an evergreen tree, and the 185th day of the year ain't just fireworks and picnics and the occasional Sousa march.
(Not that the third holiday's in the same league as the first two.)
Remember what we're commemorating, and why it was ever important. Remember it's not just the Memorial Day analog to Sweetest Day alongside February fourteenth.
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I actually had in mind forces (or folks) who wanted to strip the meaning of things in our culture more for Orwellian purposes than for financial ones, but thank you for pointing out the other side of the coin.
On the one hand, we've got things getting watered down, by emphasizing things like "holiday trees," silver bells, and other seasonal accoutrements that aren't overtly Christian, to make it more palatable to folks who don't celebrate the Nativity. On the other hand, we've got malls inviting kids to come visit Peter Rabbit on Easter, so not only do we have no Christianized pagan symbolism, we don't even have nominally pagan symbolism to go with the holiday. It's like the opposite of a Hallmark holiday.
I even saw someone say, in the last weeks of 2001 or the beginning of 2002, that the sight of all those American flags people had put up everywhere made her sick. I hoped she would be the last person to fail to distinguish patriotism from jingoism. Oh well.
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