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Message: <blockquote data-quote="fusangite" data-source="post: 2018639" data-attributes="member: 7240">I hope you're not mistaking me for someone advocating generic winter festivals. I like specific, meaningful festivals. Frankly, I think Christmas and Thanksgiving are being robbed of meaning, not invested with it these days. The meaning of a festival is tied, to a large extent to its mode of observance. Processional observance has been by far the most inclusive in the past. But today, observance is not tied to many people operating in public space but instead to small nucleated groups operating in private space. I think that's bad news for society. Arguably, the only major processional festival our culture has today is Gay Pride Day -- and it, for all its qualities, cannot be defined as an inclusive festival.As do I. Look: I'm not advocating that what is celebrated change here; pagan societies were damned good at celebrating fertility in inclusive ways. What I'm saying is that the mode of observance of the festival is exclusionary. I object to this not because Valentines Day is special but because all of our society's major festivals, with the exception of national holidays, are drifting in that direction. We live in a society that is erecting new barriers to entry for participating in major festivals (Christmas, Thanksgiving) and increasingly promoting existing festivals that have entry barriers (Valentine's Day).Well, attacking your holiday is one part of the process by which I'm trying to do that <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />.No argument here. I think we should do more to honour Saint Christopher. 9' tall 250-year old dog-headed mean who can't speak deserve much more recognition.Same here. I was just taking you at your word when you claimed that the day had something to do with the Saint.</blockquote>

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