Thought 14: Why do we celebrate holidays instead of holy days?

Let me start by saying this is not going to be about how holidays now have forgotten about their original meanings or how any holiday is under attack.

My question is a little different.  Has there been a change in reality that reflects the change in language from Holy Day to Holiday.  When we talk about a holiday now we talk about taking time off from work.  While people still observe holy days with religious significance that is a thing that varies among different people.

But we all celebrate holidays.  We all take time off from work.  So my question is, is this something new.  Is this something that started in the last couple of hundred years?  Five hundred years ago was there no cessation from labor?  Was there only a few (or many) days a year when you stopped working long enough for some religious observance and then got right back to work?

I don't think so.  If there is one constant among humanity (and there are in fact quite a few) we like to take time off from work.  Even if you love your job sometimes you want to take a break.  So where people in the olden days just as likely as us to see a holy day as an excuse to party?  Yeah yeah, you make pious noises (or maybe have some genuine religious observance) but you're really looking forward to that time off.

Clearly people with differing levels of energy required to get sustenance will have different levels of holiday priority.  But how often did Cinco-De-Mayo type celebrations happen?  To clarify, how often did a group of people with absolutely no association with a celebration use it as an excuse to party?  How often was the supposed observation completely lost in the opportunity to unwind.

Dionysius' followers may have been rigorously keeping up with the holidays but were they devout (or was devotion to the god of parties even something that is truly possible with our understanding of religious devotion)?

I don't think you even need holy days (at least from my understanding of the Bible there seems to be no mandate for them).  There is a mandate for taking some time off though.  So we can each decide how and when we will celebrate holidays.  Are they a reason to take time off or do we imbue them with religious observances.

I really like symbols.  I will try very hard to communicate to my children (in the future!) the deep meaning of the holy days of my religion.  I won't do it because I think if they don't celebrate the same way as me they are wrong, but because I want to share something that is significant to me.  But not everyone is as symbolically sensitive as I am.  If they just want a holiday I can live with that.  You gotta rest sometime.