Hello my beautiful Reader and welcome back to the blog!
We are officially winding down the Summertime weather, and I am coming to terms with the sudden onslaught of chilled air and acorns falling on our roof. I will have to add however, that "coming to terms" is a far cry from full-on-acceptance, but we are definitely on our way to full-on-happiness with Fall.
Now, I also have to add an apology to this post my dearest Reader! I did not post our Friday series ON Friday! One of my friends and bridesmaids came to visit me for the weekend, and I have not seen her in four months. I was so swept up in the socializing and laughter that I completely forgot to write this blog post!
So here we are, with a Friday series post on a Saturday....
But alas, I must say that it's better late than never right? And today is an exciting day as we are here to announce the beginning of a new series here at Mrs. Midwest! For the next five weeks we will be unpacking and discussing the idea of celebration.
Yes, I know that might sound a little odd, but I believe that the topic of celebration is an under-discussed and... dare I say... under-celebrated (LOL) topic in our modern world.
So for the next few weeks, I want to unpack how we can get back to a healthy version of celebration, and how we can seamlessly include celebration into our lives to make our years pass by in a much more... sparkly... way. Also, this blog post is going to be short today because my friend is here with me in the coffee shop as I write this, but I promise to really unpack this next week.
Why do we celebrate?
Now, sometimes it feels like the modern take on celebration is sorely lacking in depth, heart, and ritual. Despite the manic music festivals, nightly excursions to the club, and huge displays of Christmas ornaments available WELL in advance of December, our culture has a decided lack of true celebration in life.
The problem is twofold: firstly, many of us are not in touch with what we are actually celebrating. It feels like we are putting up a Christmas tree just for the sake of it, or that we are attending a Superbowl viewing party just to eat some nachos.
Secondly, I feel that our celebrations are too frequent. They tend to have a decided lack of tradition, meaning, or even delayed gratification.
The truth is that celebration is an ancient and necessary practice that humans have been engaging with since the dawn of time. They were religious or related to the seasons, the lunar cycle, or agriculture. Celebrations involved our neighbors, our families, and our communities. They were times when special foods, dances, and stories made an appearance, and they were deeply tied to the ritual of life, and often gave communities a more grounded cadence and rhythm.
Celebration was a way to observe the passing of time and the milestones in life.
It is my belief that a return to old-fashioned and ancient celebrations can add to our happiness, our strength as a community, and to our lives as a whole.
It also feels that people desperately try to create new instances for celebration, with small milestones like a gender reveal becoming an entirely new reason to celebrate. The constant gift-buying and alcohol sipping can begin to wear down our strength and excitement, causing us to feel exhausted and out of touch with our world.
Now, I do believe that a new baby is a reason to celebrate, as is a wedding, but I feel like we have lost touch with how to celebrate.
Instead of emphasis being put on the connections we will make or the food we will eat together, emphasis has gone towards the look of events. We are so focused on the pictures for Instagram, that we lose touch with the reason for celebration: making memories.
Think about your celebration through a different set of eyes: how would you want to do it if there were no photographs at all? Would you even celebrate at all? Would you spend more money on the centerpieces or would you focus on the food?
Celebration should not be so tightly married to our photos that we forget the real reason we celebrate in the first place. Celebration is a way for us to pass the years with closure, peace, and recognition of the things in our lives that matter.
As you attend celebrations in the next week and as you raise your glass on a random Tuesday evening, I urge you to come back to the real reason we celebrate:
We celebrate to make memories.
We celebrate to make connections.
And we celebrate to observe the milestones of life.
In short, we don't celebrate to take pictures.
I am excited to dive more into this topic over the next few weeks and really unpack how we can begin to develop our celebrations so that they can be more meaningful and life-giving.
Unfortunately, I have to sign off and give my attention to other things now, but gear up for this series because we are going to dive deeper this week!
xoxo,
Cait
I can't wait to hear more on this topic! I am so guilty of trying to create the picture perfect party. For my son's 2nd birthday I stayed up until 4 am finishing up table decorations. Then waking up at 6 am to get everything ready for the day. His cake order got lost, so his cake wasn't made and I cried... it's embarrassing but funny now how wrapped up I got into trying to make everything "perfect". Well, the party turned out amazing once I let go of the anxiety I was putting on myself. The only pictures I ended up taking were of my son, having fun! Not of the decor and it really woke me up t…
Oh! And may I add: celebrations should NOT automatically mean presents!
You are off to a good start as someone else said. You may mention this in your coming posts...but it seems like competition may also be a factor. Childrens birthday party venues!!!! Wow...just seems like each parent trying to out-do the next in the impressive places to hold the Birthday parties spending hundreds of dollars on them! Am I just being an old fuddy duddy? I feel so bad for the children and parents who simply can't afford these kinds of parties so the children just don't get to have a birthday party. As you mentioned...it doesn't seem to be about friends and relationships.
I’m excited that you’re doing a series on this topic of celebration! Celebrations may get out of hand with all of the details thanks to Pinterest. (Lol) It seems so much work is being put in for the set up and the look more than the experience and interaction. I’ve had my long days of making those paper flowers with my mom because it “had to look exactly like the pictures.” Being so worked up that I couldn’t even enjoy the event. I loved the part where you said how would it be if there were no photographs. I try my best to reduce my time on social media. A lot of times it can pressure us to move in…
Beautifully started! Can’t wait to see where you will go with this!!
It’s true! I always think about children’s birthday parties and how every year is bigger and bigger. I didn’t do that with my kids, but we did do big parities for milestones (age 1, 5, 10, 13, etc.). We felt those were huge changes in their lives: their first year of life, beginning school years, double digits, becoming a teenager, etc.