A Theory of Sprawling Holidays - by Anne Helen Petersen: I’m not against holidays, or costumes, or Candy Corn, or traditions, or anything that you do in your family that actually feels meaningful, like you’re choosing your damn holiday choice, every year. But the sprawling, expensive,... explodingcomma.com

@petebrown You are not alone! My wife also really likes candy corn.

@petebrown More seriously: What she describes, the competitiveness of present-day festivals and celebrations—whether with the neighbors or our own memories or some fictional ideal—may be inevitable in a society as individualistic and atomized as ours. We have almost no communal celebratory traditions left, and once we start having to invent our own, what can possibly be enough? (I'm stopping myself from going on here... there's a lot in there to think about.)

@gregmoore glad to hear I’m not alone!

@dwalbert I’m kind of winging it here, but it seems to me to maybe be of a piece with the mania for optimization that is infecting every last corner of life.

@petebrown Yes, that too… it is all connected in some way. And that desire for optimization has roots as old as Victorian Christmas, much as it has accelerated in the past generation.