Let The Christmas season Begin!

GoodSpeak · November-26th-2005, 09:14 PM

God...I love this time of year

Traditionally, we, as a family, decorate the house and put up the Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving.

It is such a wonderful season!

What are your pre-Christmas experiences?

Share them here.

Tim

Please Note: Holiday Grinches and Scrouge-like fusspots need not apply.

clinthopson · November-28th-2005, 11:35 AM

The only reason we look forward to the holiday season is than just a bit over a month later we head to Zihuatanejo.

The God Squad gets way too visible during this time of year. They don't seem to realize that most of the trappings are pagan.

Pete C · November-28th-2005, 12:13 PM

sucks

cookie · November-28th-2005, 12:48 PM

I love Christmas in general though I hate aspects of it.

I love the lights.
I love the food.
I love, love, LOVE the music!! (I love holiday music of ALL and sundry kinds)
I love the parties.

I hate the materialism.
I hate the politics.
I hate WRAPPING gifts (love buying, giving, and getting them, but I can't wrap worth a damn).
I hate the commercialism.

The Christians are being more strident this year about the whole "Happy Holidays" v "Merry Christmas" debacle. Some of them boycott stores that have "Holiday" rather than "Christmas" promotions.

I don't see why it's such a big deal. You wish someone a happy whatever THEY celebrate. I have no problem wishing somebody a Happy Hanukkah or a good Kwanzaa if I know they celebrate those holidays. I think that "The Holidays" extend BEYOND Christmas for many of us because the holiday encompasses New Year's and possibly(depending on your background) the 12 days of Christmas and Three Kings Day or the Dutch Santa Claus Day. So when I wish somebody happy holidays, I'm thinking of the entire holiday season, dig?

Though I'm disconnected from the church right now, I still like to observe Advent just as a way to keep our priorities straight. When I was a kid, we had a family devotional each Advent Sunday in our home. We don't have the devotional part, but during Advent, we sit down to Sunday evening dinner all together as a family and eat by the light of the candles in the Advent wreath. That isn't all that unusual, and if we get to eat a sit-down together meal at any time during the week, we also light the appropriate number of candles. It makes the dinner table a sacred space for being together.

Henry Mars · November-28th-2005, 03:46 PM

....Cookie. That sounds very nice. Really though, wouldn't we all be so much better off if we just forgot about it for just one year? My wallet wouldn't hurt, I wouldn't gain an ounce, ..... the sun and the moon will rise and set. I know it is tough to give up, but realize it is just a habit that we have acquired.
Guilt inflicted by Madison Ave. is a terrible thing.

blawless · November-28th-2005, 03:53 PM

Hey, I love the guilt. That's the best part of this time of year.

Rob C · November-28th-2005, 03:55 PM

My feeling about Xmas is: Happy Holidays!

Enforcer · November-28th-2005, 03:58 PM

I can't stand Christmas. Get rid of it, please. Thanks.

Cem · November-28th-2005, 04:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Larry Nagel

I can't stand Christmas. Get rid of it, please. Thanks.

C'mon Larry, it's not all bad!
Rod Stewart And Penny Lancaster Plan Christmas Wedding

March 15, 2005, 6:55:16

STEWART AND LANCASTER PLAN CHRISTMAS WEDDING IN FLORIDA

ROD STEWART will marry fiancee PENNY LANCASTER at his Florida mansion this Christmas (DEC05) when the rocker's divorce from estranged wife RACHEL HUNTER will finally be completed.

The 60-year-old DO YA THINK I'M SEXY? singer proposed to the 33-year-old model on Saturday (12MAR05) during a romantic trip to Paris, France's Eiffel Tower.

But by the time the paper work is completed for his divorce from Hunter, the winter weather in Britain, France and Los Angeles will be too cold for the wedding, so the couple have opted for a warm ceremony at his Palm Beach home, reports British newspaper THE SUN. A close friend says, "Rod was seriously considering Scotland because he is proud of his Scottish heritage, but thought it would look corny. And the weather's unreliable.

Enforcer · November-28th-2005, 04:07 PM

Good god. Did you get that from The Onion or something, Cem? Tell me that's not for real.

Chris D · November-28th-2005, 04:07 PM

Bah on you humbugs. I love Christmas.

GoodSpeak · November-28th-2005, 04:10 PM

Um.

Gee.

I was kinda hoping we could focus on the positive aspects of the season....you know like the spirit of giving, volunteerism, re-uniting with friends and relatives, like that.

sheesh

Squaredancecalling Steve · November-28th-2005, 04:11 PM

Sounds like Larry wasn't invited.

Cem · November-28th-2005, 04:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Larry Nagel

Good god. Did you get that from The Onion or something, Cem? Tell me that's not for real.

A higher authority even...

Squaredancecalling Steve · November-28th-2005, 04:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cem

A higher authority even...

Now THAT is a girlie-girl site: gossip, horoscopes, and lingerie, which I assume is Cem's interest.

Cem · November-28th-2005, 04:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Squaredancecalling Steve

Now THAT is a girlie-girl site: gossip, horoscopes, and lingerie, which I assume is Cem's interest.

hee-hee-hee!!

clinthopson · November-28th-2005, 04:54 PM

You can take your mistletoe and holly and. . .

patricia · November-28th-2005, 05:16 PM

I used to love Christmas when I was growing up. We didn't put up the tree until just before The Day and took it down on New Years' Day. My mother would bake the fruit cakes for a couple of years from now and find one that had matured for a couple of years already. I LOVE dark fruit cake and never have it except at Christmas. It's rich and dark and moist and well, yummy.
The gift buying, at least for my brothers and me, involved taking the money we had saved and buying small gifts for family and special friends. My brothers bought Mother a gift set of Evening in Paris cologne/bath salts/perfume/lotion/powder for around ten dollars from the T.Eaton's catalogue, four years in a row, by pooling their funds. She dabbed some and thanked them profusely. Years later, after she died, I found the four boxes untouched in a cupboard. I used to give her hanky sets, which were pinned nicely to a cardboard square.
We always used to go to Midnight Mass, after which we opened our gifts. Santa showed up while we were at Mass. Dad wasn't a Catholic, so he took us to church. Presumably, while we were at church, he wrangled the gifts. When we came home there was hot chocolate. We kids assumed that Santa just had good timing.
I remember Mother getting up really early to prepare the turkey, which filled the house with a wonderful smell all day.
Friends would drop by for a drink and bring their kids.
We didn't get a ton of gifts, but there was a special feeling about the season that doesn't seem to be the same now.
Around February, gifts from two aunts in England would arrive. Neither one of them seemed to realize that it took a while for their stuff to get here. But, it was cool to receive the little gifts from them. We had to immediately sit down and write short notes to thank them. I still do that if people send me gifts, which they do from time to time. Good habit to have and to pass on to our kids.
I know that it's become a cliche that Christmas is too commercialized, but it has. Pity.

steve(thelil) · November-28th-2005, 05:54 PM

3 words: Bah Fucking Humbug.

patricia · November-28th-2005, 05:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by steve(thelil)

3 words: Bah Fucking Humbug.

I'm not sending YOU hankies.

Are you saying that you will not be celebrating the birth of the Saviour by going out and buying a post-hole auger for somebody. My daughter and her friend were discussing Christmas and her friend was agonizing about what to buy her father. Finally, Erin rolled her eyes and said, "Why don't you celebrate the birth of Jesus by buying your Dad a set of bits for his power-drill?" Her friend did a double take and they both laughed hysterically.
Has Christmas really come to this?

Surfer · December-2nd-2005, 12:57 PM

http://mypartypost.com/watchvideo/10...s_Display_Ever

God Bless the U S of FUCKIN' A

GoodSpeak · December-3rd-2005, 11:39 AM

Maybe this'll cheer you humbugs up:

frankenmeister7 · December-3rd-2005, 03:00 PM

i agree on everything that cookie said.

i really don't think the kids would miss much if it wasn't so commercialized. therefore, they as young people are caught in the whole thing.

remember when child is born, the first seven/eight years is what they remember. so blame society and the parents for even going along with all the BS.

i would like Christmas to come at least every 3 years. You don't get bored with the whole thing and maybe you might appreciate it more.

or for what the season represents to a lot of folks.

i really think it should be for all the holidays.

how many do we have a year and we spend have the time in the stores buying for all these holidays.

it's amazing that we all as a whole on this planet haven't blown each other up with all this hype.

bring on the days of old.

i have a very old spirit. would rather be living in the 30s, 40s, or 50s, than this crap.

Henry Mars · December-3rd-2005, 04:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by frankenmeister7

bring on the days of old.

i have a very old spirit. would rather be living in the 30s, 40s, or 50s, than this crap.

Things were not much different then. People didn't have credit and mass media like they do now. If they did things would have been just a screwed up.
Blame Visa and Madison Ave. The real trick is to ignore it.
I pity people with young kids that have not removed the TV and PC from their homes.

patricia · December-3rd-2005, 04:57 PM

I don't know what it was like where you grew up, but I was a little kid in the '50s and the commercialization, at least in the area I was living in was nothing like it is now.
Sure we got gifts and gave gifts, but not at the scale people do now. We put up and decorated a Christmas tree. The school Christmas Concert was a fixture, as was attendance at Midnight Mass. My family was not poor, but we kids understood that Santa brought ONE gift and all the others had to be bought by family members, or in special cases, friends. That seemed to tamp down our natural greed and avarice. The emphasis was on visiting, eating large quantities of Christmas-related groceries and people would say "Merry Christmas" to people they usually didn't notice most days. Christmas music didn't start being played on the radio until quite close to The Day.
The whole downtown was decorated and there were huge Christmas trees on the lawns of public buildings and a nativity scene in front of my church, life-sized and lighted at night.
I do miss that kind of Christmas.

Henry Mars · December-3rd-2005, 11:49 PM

Patricia,
That kind of Christmas will never be back.
I was a little kid in the 50's too. TV and then easy credit ruined everything.

Gary Sisco · December-4th-2005, 10:35 AM

Christmas has been for the merchants here since before the American revolution, when drunken mobs of "common people" used to celebrate it by knocking on the doors of the rich in places like Boston, demanding food and drink, especially the latter.

Which gave the merchants a good reason to start promoting a quiet, family holiday *at home* (not to mention the gift buying part).

The real commercialism, though, got its start primarily in the late 19th C, along with the first efforts of mass advertising, which has only snowballed since.

In short, there was never an "olden time" xmas that resembled any modern fantasies about it. Like all golden ages, it belongs to imagination, not the past. Before the merchants got hold of it, it was a minor christian holiday, and actually not so christian, as it had been a holiday for centuries prior to any christianizing of Europe (or anywhere).

Gary Sisco · December-4th-2005, 10:39 AM

I have a question no christian has answered for me,yet, though, which has to do with the little town of Bethlehem and all of that.

To fulfill prophecy, Jesus (Yeshua) had to be of the House of David. But it was Joseph who was of the House of David, which is the reason for the journey to Bethlehem and etc. Mary was not of the House of David. Yeshua wasn't born of a sexual union of Joseph and Mary. How then is Yeshua of the House of David?

patricia · December-4th-2005, 11:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gary Sisco

Before the merchants got hold of it, it was a minor christian holiday, and actually not so christian, as it had been a holiday for centuries prior to any christianizing of Europe (or anywhere).

And before the Christians got hold of it, like all the other pagan holidays, it was the Winter Festival, likely created to off-set SAD.
There is nothing wrong with having a whoop-up to fend off the quite common depression resulting from the short days and lack of sunlight. If that is the period that Christians, or other faiths want to honour their dieties, there is no harm in that.
Christmas, aside from the scope of the commercialism, is no different from Easter which was also a pagan festival taken over by the Christians to commemorate the passion of Jesus. Neither Christmas, nor Easter are celebrated on the actual dates that these events are purported to have taken place.
All the "buy this" frenzy has become what these perfectly innocent Christian festivals are about, forgetting what they originally were.
My recollections of childhood Christmasses are, admittedly, mine and don't reflect necessarily what everybody did, even during the fifties. But, it was a format that I followed with my own children and that they have carried on.
No way to stop the rock from rolling, ever faster down the hill, but there are pockets of resistance to the commercialism.
It's insane to plunge into huge debt to celebrate Christamas. or the Winter Solstice.
It can be a wonderful time to get the family and friends together, experience good will, share seasonal food and libation and generally fend off the depression of the dark and cold days of the depths of winter though.

GoodSpeak · December-4th-2005, 02:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Henry Mars

Patricia,
That kind of Christmas will never be back.
I was a little kid in the 50's too. TV and then easy credit ruined everything.

Sad, but true.

Butcha know what? You can always choose to ignore that crap and make Christmas special in your own way.

In the GoodSpeak houshold we celebrate the season and each other....let the others do what they may. We simply aren't going to pay any attention to it or acknowledge the negativity.