the.com/merrymaking
Joy with a schedule — fun that got organized and showed up on time.
means Festive, lighthearted celebration — eating, drinking, dancing, and general jollity pursued together and on purpose.
from A straightforward compound of 'merry' (Old English 'myrge,' meaning pleasant or delightful, distantly tied to a root about things passing pleasantly or briefly) and 'making' — literally the act of making merriment happen. It's been stitched together since at least the medieval period, when 'make merry' was already a standing phrase for deliberate revelry, and 'merrymaking' simply nounified the habit.
- origin
- merry once meant short, not happy
- peak season
- victorian christmases weaponized it
- modern form
- office parties pretending to be spontaneous