I envy that.

I talked to my Swedish colleague S yesterday, asking her about her holiday back home. Her description mirrored my own experience of holidays and traditions in general. Her family is Muslim so they don't really celebrate Christmas, but they've also stopped celebrating the Eid Al Fatr so the end result is that they don't really do, or in if you take it one step further, believe in anything at all (as in, believing in something thus upholding or recognizing it) this time of year. It's the same with me. Christmas is not really relevant anymore, but Chanukka isn't observed by me or my family either - so you end up with little ado about nothing. And this at a time when everyone else, Protestant, Catholic or you name it, is going holiday bananas.

And it keeps on in a similar vain - Pesach, Easter, Midsummer... I don't make a fuss about anything, which is weird in a way. Is it the same thing as nothing is important? Now I'm not saying that just because regular secularised yet Protestant Swedes (as an example) deck the halls with bows of holly they also believe in the birth of Christ, or that it's even related to Him. You can celebrate Christmas in a eating-and-shopping way that is quite detached from religion these days (less true in Italy though). The point I'm trying to make here is that that religiously detached consumerist stuff-yourself-with-stuffing-holiday is celebrated with religious fervor by most people, thus giving them something to uphold and look forward to, something that is kinda sacred and important.

Christmas/Chanukka/Eid/Kwanzaa is still the opportunity to meet up with your family and eat and be merry so I'm not complaining. I miss the weight of traditions, that's all.