Happy New Year! Holy Day?

"Congratulations.  May you have wealth!"  This is as common a greeting here as "Merry Christmas" in the west in December, and really, what else is "merry" these days?  It's the year of the rabbit now and the turn on the calendar has not passed without a war-zone envying load of gunpowder (in the form of fireworks) and probably enough jiaozi to feed each world citizen at least a few.


Here's the view we woke up to Thursday morning... 

7am, downstairs from our place

the air was thick with the smell and dingy grayness of ash

fireworks are always wrapped in red paper... the color of blessing

The fireworks here are absolutely amazing.  They are beautiful and they are LOUD.  There's the quantity (we heard the average home here spends approximately 3,000 quai ($450 USD) on fireworks for this celebration.  Not sure that could be correct though.  That's a good bit more than a month of rent for us here!) and the incredible scariness/ foolishness of shooting them off:  little kids running between huge piles of missel-type shooters and crackers thrown onto sidewalks bustling with pedestrians or inches from homes.   There were over 1,600 reported injuries from firecrackers in 2010.   But I need to be humbled if I'm going to try to wrap my heart around this issue for a country who's had gunpowder in its veins since the very beginning...  


Watching these festive displays does leave me wondering, questioning again, the point of all of it.  Is this holiday simply about fireworks and food?  And I'm not poking on China...  I wonder it all the more about the way that we celebrate Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter.


Honestly, is there much meaning to these celebrations in our own home besides maybe a token Bible passage reading and/or church service, food, and whatever the cultural norms are... usually, when I was growing up, including a fair portion of time in front of the TV(as if it was of great importance!)?  I don't mean to rag on this....  but might there be more to a day (or days!) of holy celebration?


Since November, when I read about the first Thanksgiving celebrations with the Native Americans near Plymouth, how the pilgrims celebrated several days of feasting and sports and fun with their local friends, I've wondered what a holy celebration should look like.  In December, Ann Voskamp wrote about ways of celebrating Christmas in a way less dictated by western cultural norms and more thoroughly saturated with Christ.   God seems quite concerned that his people celebrate worthy days well.  But what does that look like for us?


Reading through much of the Old Testament, the Torah, it's clear that God gives worthy celebrations and weekly rest as an evident mark that sets his people apart as blessed, as His.  And its good news already that our God cares that we rest and be glad, and if it brings him pleasure and glory too...  I really need to figure out how to live there better, how to celebrate holy days well.   


And while I'm at it, I want to pursue growing in actively celebrating every day...  aren't they all holy gifts, never to be repeated, beginnings of eternity?


I have much to learn, much to explore.  I'm going to dig around a little bit and hopefully gather others' wiser thoughts on the discipline of holy feasts and maybe also fasts (they were both commanded).  A most magnificent season is coming and I so want our family to celebrate it fully, excellently, joyfully, worshipfully... in a way that others might see His joy and blessing in us and us in Him.


We are so blessed that our God wants us to be a people of holy celebration... After all, we were made in his image and he is a holy, celebratory, worship-worthy God.  Belonging to him, we have every reason to celebrate.  Lord teach us to do it well for your glory!