HOLIDAYS
If you woke up one morning and could remember only your childhood, which memory would stand out the most?
If someone asked me that question, my answer would probably be, “Holidays, of course.”
Every holiday has its own distinctive features for children.
First, let’s consider how official and religious holidays differ from a child’s perspective.
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Official holidays from a child’s perspective: “Official holidays” are not very appealing to children.
Because the word “official” implies a need for formality and seriousness, it doesn’t really suit children—and it doesn’t suit them in practice, either. On those days, children do what adults want, getting more and more bored as they go! At least, that’s how it seems to me.
For example, things are no different today on April 23, the holiday that Great Leader Mustafa Kemal Atatürk dedicated to children.
We have made the holiday declared for children so formal that it’s not the children who have fun, but us adults—thanks to the situations we put them in.
In other words, we’re partly responsible for how off-putting the word “official” is.
Religious holidays from a child’s perspective: “Religious holiday” is a complicated and profound concept, so children don’t really care about its meaning. And parents don’t feel the need to explain the intricacies to them anyway.
But a competition to make children happy, both materially and emotionally, takes off and keeps going.
That’s why what we experience during religious holidays in childhood is generally fun: amusement parks, plenty of pocket money, cute new clothes, and so on.
It all remains fresh in our memories...
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Now, let’s get back to the question I asked at the beginning of this piece.
I don’t know what you remember, but I remember a lot.
I’m sure that as I describe my memories in the lines below, yours will come back to you, too.
For some reason, the radio would always be turned on every holiday morning, and Barış Manço’s song “Bugün Bayram” (“Today Is a Holiday”) would always be playing. I don’t know whether it really came on that often or whether I’m exaggerating, but that’s how I remember it.
Holidays had their own fashion.
People followed it when buying new clothes.
Just look: the clothes children usually wear on holidays are very similar to one another.
Of course, there are always a few who stand out. (I was one of those different ones, even though I never wanted to be. My childhood coincided with the period when my older sister was learning to sew; I wore the clothes she made in her enthusiasm for sewing. The clothes my sister made were very nice, but she rejected the idea of a standard way of life and didn’t really follow holiday fashion. So I was always the one who stood out among the other children. I was the one who had to answer for the mischief we got up to as a group.)
We shouldn’t forget those inflation-inflated holiday allowances. They had to be spent right away.
That’s why there were very thoughtful (!) holiday-themed businesses that seemed to exist solely to make sure children spent their allowances immediately. For example, the amusement parks we usually visited in summer would be open even during holidays in the middle of winter. And, of course, grocery stores would stock all kinds of unnecessary toys that you could never find outside the holidays (for some reason), such as “girl-snatcher” fireworks, cork guns, firecrackers, cap guns, and so on.
A certain cheekiness would take hold during the holidays: of course, with the family’s support.
Many things that were never allowed at other times were considered perfectly acceptable during the holidays.
You could ask anyone for “money” (code name: holiday allowance), even though you would never be allowed to take it from someone at other times.
During the first few minutes of holiday visits, children would initially refuse the holiday allowance, saying they didn’t want it. Then, after their mothers or fathers said, “Go on, take it,” they would slip it into a pocket or bag, blushing slightly.
Of course, that feeling of embarrassment, shown in the blush, would later give way to the (innocent) cheekiness of thinking the allowance they had been given was too small.
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When I started writing, I was afraid this piece would turn into one of those “Whatever happened to the holidays of the old days?” pieces. But somehow, whether I like it or not, that’s where the words are taking me.
I think we all have memories to share under the heading “Whatever happened to the holidays of the old days?”
It seems I have some, too.
I suppose that as we get older, we settle into the idea that “the holidays we experienced in our childhood were wonderful.”
On top of all this, the excitement of the holidays and the New Year came one after the other this year.
We have a lot more to say about these subjects.
Leaving what we have to say about the New Year and the holiday until Monday, I wish my dear readers a happy Eid al-Adha, and hope that the New Year brings health, happiness, and well-being to us all.
See you on Monday... Be courteous in traffic.