In general I agree with you, though I do know a few who refuse to celebrate it because of its origins (white man coming in and taking advantage of the natives). Just saying that they’re out there, but yes, Thanksgiving is far more universally celebrated than just about any other holiday here.
Agreed with the cards. I don’t mind Happy Holidays on some generic winter scene, but when it’s on an obvious Christmas-themed card, it makes me :rolleyes:.
Except for maybe St. Nicholas’ Day.
Right. For me Thanksgiving is a slightly bigger deal ( still not huge ), simply because I have no particular affection for the Christmas season. It’s really the only traditional holiday I kinda like. I typically do multiple meals ( I could, technically, have availed myself of four turkeys within one week - work Tuesday, friends today, one set of parents Friday, another Sunday ) and often out of town people are visiting and I’ll hang with them a bit. Christmas I just prefer to work for the extra cash - sometimes I do a Christmas Eve family dinner. Of course I’m working this Friday as well, but again I’m getting paid a buttload of extra money to do so.
But that’s purely down to my own preferences. Culturally Christmas is the uber-holiday in the United States.
Not without a transporter, but thanks for the thought. I started a pot roast about an hour ago, and plan to watch football and eventually the most recent episode of V. 
And restaurants, and hospitals, and lots of manufacturing facilities, and gas stations, and the astronauts on the space shuttle, and the troops, and grocery stores…yeah to say that EVERYBODY is off work is completely wrong. My Mom and sister both worked today. My Mom in a textile mill and my sister at a hospital.
The fact your family doesn’t do Christmas makes you outside the norm. The question for the thread is “Is Thanksgiving a bigger deal than Christmas in the USA?”
Yes, so let’s just ignore everyone outside the norm, right? Non-Christians have always existed in the US, and we’re becoming a larger part of the demographic these days. I’m sorry my deviance disturbs you, but I get tired of being told my demographic doesn’t exist, so sit down, shut up, and sing the damn carols like a Real American™
It rather on par with the statement up thread that “everyone gets Friday off” - let’s just totally ignore the retail workers on Black Friday, fire, police, medical people, restaurant folks… they aren’t the majority but they are still a significant slice of the whole.
I haven’t had a significant American holiday off since I started working; as a bartender, I have worked the vast majority of my Thanksgivings, Christmases, New Years Eves, and all the rest of them…I got Thanksgiving off this year because I “volunteered” (:rolleyes:) to work a 14 hour shift on Christmas day.
I can only hope that people will try to be a bit more kind than usual, considering that I am working America’s biggest holiday.
Not that people ever are. Merry fucking Christmas, everyone!
:smack:
What I’ve always wondered is do the majority of American’s have turkey on Christmas Day as well, even if they have it on Thanksgiving too? That does seem like a hell of a lot of turkey and I like my turkey.
Also on the football thing, isn’t there always an NFL game on Christmas Day? Its always the one match I miss due to my family not buying my whole “but its much better than soccer” argument.
Man I can’t wait for my patented Chirstmas turkey, ham and spiced beef sandwiches.
Broomstick I don’t know why you’re always bitter.
I am bitter because so many people in this world insist that others conform to the majority regardless of the cost to those in the minority. I am bitter because so many don’t even see people who aren’t like themselves, much less consider them fellow human beings. Really, you’re saying who I am, who and what I care about, and what I believe are so worthless that they can be safely ignored and my hurt feelings have no importance. You don’t see where that is even a little off-putting?
Yeah, Broomstick, you have enough issues for a subscription. You’re bringing in a whoooooole lot of baggage into this thread.
Like I said, I’m sorry my “issues” cause you grief, but frankly I’d be happy to see Christmas relegated to a minor holiday celebrated solely by Christians rather than being pressured to spend money I don’t have to celebrate the alleged birth of a god I don’t believe in. I realize I’m not suppose to discuss such an unfashionable opinion because it upsets the True Believers, but tough.
Which is why I’m much more a fan of Thanksgiving - you can get ridiculous about it if you want to, but no one looks at your funny if you say you just want to make it a simple get-together with a good meal. A low-key Thanksgiving is perfectly acceptable - a low-key Christmas is not in our society.
I think it’s a little strange for someone in an acknowledged minority to pout quite so heartily and expect the rest of the country to … what? Stop putting up Christmas decorations for the majority of people who appreciate them? Stop shopping for Christmas presents? Stop playing Christmas music?
I get that you find it annoyign that the rest of us celerate a holiday that you don’t beleive, and I do apologize if you regularly have to deal with evangelicals who are blatantly intolerant of your beleif structure, because I know that can be frustrating. The majority of people on the dope, and I imagine in this thread, however, are not assholes of the highest order, who don’t understand how to be pleasantly, politely evangelical. Evangelism is part of the religion, too, and it gets its biggest bump around this time of the year…
You’re cracking me up here. So I’m a True Believer because I think you’re way-overreacting? Just so you know, each reply you’ve made makes you sound more and more frothing mad. You aren’t really making a great case for yourself, here.
Broomstick, pressure is in your head. If you don’t want to celebrate Christmas, don’t. There are millions in America like you. If you don’t like commercials on TV, you’re in excellent company – no one does. But it’s not a plot to force Christianity on you.
FrWindy etc…my family always had turkey on both Thanksgiving and Christmas. Just far enough apart that it never seemed excessive.
Oh please. You can rightly bitch and moan about the morons who loudly shout “Jesus is the reason for the season!”, but pretending that Christmas is some solemn religious observance is madness. It’s almost completely secular nowadays and any religious overtones the holiday may have once had are reserved completely for… wait for it… the religious.
You can celebrate a perfectly “normal” Christmas and not encounter Jesus once unless you want to (for example, if you need to turn water into funk or to help repel a vampire attack on the local lesbian population). Not celebrating (or even acknowledging it) at all puts you in a hige minority, even among other atheists.
I don’t have any objection to YOU doing the whole Christmas thing. I just hate it when it becomes mandatory.
For example, back when I worked in corporate America there was always a Christmas gift exchange. Over the past decade or so it was more and more frequently “disguised” as “holiday gift exchange” or “secret santa” but it was always with a nod and a wink and a lot of arm twisting to participate whether you wanted to or not. If you wanted to opt out of the mess you were being selfish and a scrooge. That what I mean - you have no recourse. (This sort of thing used to also piss off the Jehovah’s Witnesses who, I gather, don’t exchange gifts, either)
Another time the holiday potluck was scheduled to overlap with Ramadan. The three Muslims in the office were chastised for not having “just a bite”, because, you know, they just weren’t showing the holiday spirit! Well, crap, it could have been schedule the following week, or after sunset which, after all, comes pretty early in Chicago in December.
I don’t care if others celebrate, I do care if they use it as an excuse to thoughtlessly stomp all over other people.
Thank goodness the last few years I was in a department where participation was not compulsory. The Christians had their Christmas gift exchange, which they could openly call that, and the rest of us could celebrate or not as we saw fit.
Well, that’s one of the problems - MY faith forbids proselytizing and finds it offensive. There is no such thing as “polite evangelism” from my viewpoint. I grit my teeth and tolerate it as best I can because tolerance is a virtue and necessary to living in a civilized world, but at best I regard it about a cheerfully as an Orthodox Jew or a Muslim would regard being served a ham sandwich.
Just for the record - I’m not an atheist, not by a long shot.