I am pleased you find such nice things in your religion - unfortunately I can not bring myself to believe.
Honestly, if it wasn't for my mom, I would not know about half of these holidays, let alone a handful of them. I don't keep track and all that, and I feel like I should. But then again I'm not "religious". This is hard to explain, so I typed out a bit of a passage. If you wish to read it, please feel free.
Before I start this explanation: PLEASE PLEASE
PLEASE don't take this as a preaching thing. I'm not trying to recruit people into hinduism, I hate people that try to convert and do that sort of shit. I wish we could ban them from this planet. I am just a stupid person describing what I understand about Hinduism, and how I perceive it and live it.
Hinduism is a science and a way of life more than a religion. In fact it's name is actually 'Sanathana Dharma' which means "Unbreakable way of life" or "Eternal law". Dharma here meaning "law" or "way of life"
The concept of God is actually somewhat loose in the religion as you can take the meanings of Gods as either religious or scientific or none or both.
For example, when I was in India in '10, we hit up this temple early in the morning to conduct a "marriage" between the God Krishna and his consort Radha. I always hated the term "consort" because it humanized something that wasn't human.
Anyways, I was a bit annoyed that I had to get up early to marry 2 Gods. I am not that traditional unlike my dad's brother (who we were doing this along with and for).
I wasn't vocal about it, but I think my mom knew that I wouldn't like it, so she sits there and whispers in my ear "By conducting this ceremony you are promising to unite the unmanifest and manifest universes together". And suddenly I was totally fine with it.
We put everything as 'God' basically just to say that it's sacred and holy and should be respected. It causes people to respect one another, to respect living things, and to respect the things they have in their life (food, water, shelter, education). Plus it makes it easier to explain things to kids and to those who don't fully understand scientific concepts.
Another example is the god Nataraja. He's a form of Shiva, and is considered the lord of dance. But then they also say if he stops dancing, everything in the universe stops. Aka.... he's kinetic energy/potential energy. And so when I put my hands on the idol of nataraja's feet and ask for blessings, I'm basically asking the universe to not forsake me in giving me some of that potential energy to do something productive.
Basically what I'm trying to say is that I take everything that's labeled as 'God' for their scientific and astrophysical nature. As I grew up in the world of astrophysics that sense of 'God' is doing this and 'God' is doing that wore off greatly. I had to explain everything scientifically and I'm glad that my parents are scientists and PhDs because they back me up on this.
Hinduism basically describes nature, explains physics, math, chemistry, biology, and astrophysics, and ties in a little bit of philosophy and general laws on how to treat others. There's no real sense of "believe in this god or we will excommunicate you". There's no baptism or entrance into it, anyone here on the forums can call themselves a Hindu or Buddhist. You don't have to believe in the Gods, you don't have to believe in the stories and tales they say, and for the most part I don't and that's totally fine.
If you ask any educated person in India they'll tell you about the various Gods and all the temples that are devoted to each one etc. etc. If you ask a farmer or someone that's totally uneducated and not well versed in it about the Gods, they'll say "I have no idea what you're talking about". "I just get up every morning and pray for a bountiful harvest and for the safety of my family" and they are the happiest and most unbreakable people ever.
That's all.
Actually I guess this is yet another thing I love. My science and studies don't clash with my beliefs. In fact they go hand in hand and most of the time Hinduism has already explained that shit in full detail and we're currently like "derp the universe is expanding". "Derp big bang". "Derp dark energy".