Friday, May 28, 2010

Celebration: Duggars and Holidays

Happy Memorial Day Weekend to those of you in the United States! Those of you in Canada and overseas, I wish you a wonderful weekend as well. I am visiting my parents for the holiday and will be checking in, and if time permits hopefully posting a few new posts (I had a chance to watch some Duggar dvds on the way up--bless my husband for having the foresight to have DVD players installed in my car for long trips!--and have some new ideas, but for now here is the post on holidays, as requested! Safe weekend travels to those of you traveling and to friends and relatives traveling.

We've seen a few holiday celebrations on the show, but not very many, when you really think about it. I have a few theories--they share their lives and their Faith with us, but at the same time, they do want to keep some things to themselves. TLC also seems to move around when the Duggars are on the air--sometimes it's through the winter, sometimes it's in the spring. What holidays have we seen?

I think we can all clearly remember seeing the episode on St. Patrick's Day. Michelle, herself, made a special effort to research who St. Patrick was because of her own Irish heritage. I found this a little bit interesting--as a homeschool mom, wouldn't it have been a great opportunity for her KIDS to do a project on it? They had a huge green breakfast that was clearly over the top and probably done just for the show that day. And hearing about how the green dye affected everyone's digestive system later was ...too much information.

We've seen, if I recall, two Christmas episodes, but one was with Josie in Little Rock. The first was the Duggars in a parade, not really them showing us their Christmas morning opening presents, and Christmas traditions. I think they do try to keep some things private and personal. I believe that's why we've never seen them on Thanksgiving--afterall we've seen them film during the season, but skip over the holiday. It could be they have family and friends that don't want to be a part of the show, or it could e that some things they want to keep for themselves. I applaud them on both parts, if that's the case.

There are other holidays we haven't seen--Fourth of July, Memorial Day, New Year's, Labour Day, President's Day, Martin Luthur King Jr. Day, Columbus Day, St. Valentine's Day, and of course Mother's Day and Father's Day.

I will ammend, we did see Michelle on Mother's Day walking the ducks at the Peabody Hotel. But that was by invitation from someone else. What do the kids do for her on a Mother's Day when the rest of the world isn't celebrating her? What about Jim Bob? Ok we know how Michelle celebrated last year (hahaha) but we haven't seen how his children celebrate him.

Being such patriotic citizens, I would be interested in how they celebrate the 4th of July and if they acknowledge President's Day. Being homeschooled, they don't have day's off for Martin Luthur King Jr. Day and President's Day and Memorial Day, yet they are still very important days in our history. Do they stop to remember what those days mean? I remember when they were all waiting to find out if Jordyn was a boy or a girl and they were in the waiting room talking names--John-David was very clear about Jefferson Thomas. He was also the one who wanted quotes from founding fathers on the boy's room wall. A connection there?

I've lived in London, England as my husband is British and I've mentioned that's where I gave birth to my daughter, and I became familiar (well not really because frankly I'm still confused by what the term really means) with "bank holidays." And this weekend here in the states we are celebrating Memorial Day--officially it's on Monday, but as we have become accustomed, it's not "Memorial Day Weekend." Memorial Day is when we honour those who we've lost in battle, or those that have served and are now gone. The boy scouts will go put an American flag on my father's grave and since I will be in town, I will go place a bouquet there as well. My father served in Korea in the Navy before meeting and marrying my mother. Do the Duggars honour those who have fallen with any kind of special acknowledgement?

It will be interesting to see what the upcoming Season and beyond hold for us. Will we get to glimpse into the lives of the Duggars and their holiday celebrations?

7 comments:

  1. I would not be surprised if the reaon they do not film major religious holidays si for that reason. The Duggar's knwo that is fmaily time and the crews should not be at their home. Another reason might be the factt hat they just have too mnay friends/family over to control the filming and if people do not want to be on camera they won't come. I know we have seen clippits of a different person in the bachground who is not indetified and is only in the film for a few brief seconds and I choose to beieve they wish to remain private and that is their choice.

    Bank Holidays are usually in celebration of some type of holiday but usually the bansk are closed ont he holiday so it usually denotes a large region. One time I was visiting home-Canada and my friend and i decided to go camping but it was a bank holiday she wasn't even aware of.Turned out it was in celebration of the founding of Simcoe- one of Ontario's oldest communities! But a lot of people weren't aware of the real reason it was just a bank holiday and being summer they all went camping! Last weekend in Canda was Vistoria Day so it was another bank Hoilday on Monday.

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  2. Celtic Morla--yes regarding Bank Holidays, when we lived there I kept asking what we were "celebrating" and there was never an answer, and I'd remind him that back in the US at least it was a holiday about something specific, not just "bank holiday" but he never did give me a concrete answer, just the banks are closed, school's out, and the government offices are closed. I don't get it!!! :)

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  3. I didn't have cable until recently, so I didn't see the show except for clips (webisodes)on the Internet.
    As to St. Patrick's Day, I hope Michelle read Dr. Seuss's "Green Eggs and Ham" to the kids. That's become pretty standard St. Patrick's fare & is, like all of his other books, hilarious!

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  4. Hey fran! I LOVED reading Dr. Seuss books growing up. But the little Duggars have not talked a whole lot about what they like to read. I do remember Jill talking about her favorite book. I would like to know what type of books the little ones are allowed to read.

    There are actually some fundamentalist Christians who only celebrate scriptural holidays. I'm still researching those. Some say, just about everything has "pagan" roots. When we make a wish and blow out candles on a cake...it's considered "pagan". Huh..? Like I said, I'm still researching things.

    We all know the Duggars love to celebrate birthdays and I think that's great. In their book they said they celebrate each time a child graduates. I'd like to see that. But I'm sure there are friends and family who don't want to be on camera. So such an occasion will be kept private and I understand why.

    Hope you have a great visit with your folks MaryBeth! It's a work weekend for me. Wishing everyone a Happy Memorial weekend! :)

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  5. I bet they encourage the TLC staff to take the holidays off.

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  6. I do remember one of the earlier episodes where they celebrated christmas, went christmas shopping at walmart and got the tree and everything, it was when they lived in the little 3 bedroom house, I really liked that special, it showed Jana making dresses for her sisters and it was pretty cool.. They also showed how they went shopping for thanksgiving dinner at aldi but didn't accually show thankgiving dinner being served but again these were on the specials before it was accually a #kids and counting show!

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  7. Angie I think you hit the nail on the head. I grew up Jehovahs Witness and we were taught that all the holidays celebrated now have pagan roots and thus take the glory from God. I am 31 and my husband and I just had a our very first x-mas tree last year, our family is still shocked at us.

    I have a feeling that the Duggars don't talk too much about the holidays because they don't want to offend people...that is just my idea though. I know the Duggars do have many HUGE get togethers in their house when the film crew is out I have seen the photos on Amy Duggars facebook profile. Those get togethers could be holidays but I couldn't tell.

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