Holidays always felt hollow to me as a kid - or at least as an older kid anyway. I'm still looking for that missing piece, because I love the idea of holidays. I think it might have to do with my parents always centering them around religion rather than family. It made sense for them, being an ex-nun and priest the Church was their family, but it left me very much out in the cold.
I was trying to explain to my mother yesterday how I see going to Mass in a church where you're not part of the community and you have no desire to be (because it's really not where you belong or want to belong) as entirely missing the point of the exercise. It was like trying to explain the color red to a blind person.