Since we have children, I seem to live more consciously. What do I want (them) to celebrate in life? And what deserves commemoration? Some celebrations or commemorations evaporate over time, others grow stronger. Our monthly relationship celebrations have changed into annual celebrations, and our minimal birthday celebrations have turned into major festivities that require at least four holidays. Besides the things we celebrate or commemorate as a family, there are also things I do individually. On the day my dear brother passed away I might go out with my family and have some quality time together, but I also need time alone that day.

Commemorating and celebrating are an essential part of our lives as humans. Without it we would feel as if we were living lives without meaning and without meaningful relationships. Commemorating and celebrating lie at the essence of who we are, as they mark what and who we find important in life. The extent to which we attach importance to celebrations and commemorations, however, differs between people.

I wonder whether my deep interest in this topic is related to how I was raised to celebrate and commemorate. My parents seem to think that things should not be made extraordinary in order to mark their importance. In fact, as long as they remain in the realm of the everyday, they believe, they maintain their value, and lose it once they require collective rituals. This is not to say that we did not celebrate birthdays and holidays at home, as it is impossible to escape social norms. But these events were always celebrated modestly, in an attempt to mark them without making them extraordinary. And of course we had rituals on important days, yet they were never explicitly performed and always hidden under a blanket of intended ordinary, everydayness.

It is therefore perhaps no wonder I became intrigued by the questions that provide guidance to this book. In 2006, in my last bachelor year in Cultural Anthropology, I followed a course which questioned the dichotomy between modernity and tradition. In the same year, I organized a study trip to Estonia and Latvia.