Snow Melt

A Holiday or a Holy Day

Writing/Blog Prompt: What's your opinion on holidays? Too many, too few, should there be a consolidated list that the world should agree on celebrating? by Wordsmitty ✍️ for "30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS" 

To many people the words holiday and holy day are interchangeable; they use them to refer to both secular and religious days celebration on which work can be suspended on the day or days of the celebration or they can continue to work while celebrating. To me there is a difference, a holiday is a secular celebration which may or may not be derived from a religious event or celebration and which the majority of people in a nation celebrate. A holy day is a religious celebration that is commemorated by the adherents of a particular religion.

Thanksgiving, while it was originality created to give thanks to God for the pilgrims survival, is a secular celebration that is commemorated by all Americans whether or not they believe on a single God or multiple gods or do not believe in either. Thanksgiving is the one day each year that many people stop to count their blessing and give thanks to whom soever the believe bestowed those blessing on them.

As long as I am not forced to celebrate a specif holiday, I do not care how many holidays are proclaimed. What I would like to see is people respecting the holy days and holy books of all religions. I does not matter if one believes in the religion that celebrates that holy day. Showing respect means one does not stand in the way of someone celebrating their holy day and does not destroy another religions holy book. One does not have to believe in a religion or even in God to show respect to those who do by respecting their sacred days or sacred objects.

An example, which I hope applies to this entry. I knew a woman who suspended work on Saturday. I was talking to her one day. She was upset that other people in the neighborhood did laundry and hung it out on the line on Saturday, which was here weekly holiday. However, most the other people in the neighborhood consider Sunday as the day to suspend work. Everyone in the neighborhood knew that she did not do any work on Saturday, so they made sure they did not ask her to do anything that resembled work on Saturday. They were respecting her day of rest by not bothering her with work on that day.