Let’s face it. Christmas is no longer much of a religious celebration. It’s become commercialized to the point of saturation. Everyone is under pressure to get a cool and thoughtful gift for each of their friends and family members. It’s arguably the most stressful (and annoying) time of year.
Let’s cancel it.
Let’s just let it revert to a quiet, stress-free religious holiday.
Can I get a show of hands of who here thinks we should?
raises his own hand and looks at everyone else expectantly
When was this? If you recall, the three wise men came bearing gifts for baby Jesus. So gift giving on this day was there from the beginning.
Besides by canceling Christmas, you are also canceling the few paid days off from work that I have.
No raised hand here, sorry.
I don’t.
Maybe we could reorganize it though, so that it isn’t simply a consumerist frenzy of retail lechery and overindulgence.
Actually, Christmas was never a quiet religious holiday. The religious holiday was added to the pagan celebration of Saturnalia. As the days approach their shortest, it was quite common for an agrarian society to let loose with wild abandon. There was never a quiet, stress-free, religious holiday. Besides, I like the holiday season. Life would be so dreadfully depressing in December without the lights and the shopping and all that.
hmmm, my xmas lights are broken and I don’t have enough money to get my kids the gifts I would like to get them.
Where does that leave me?
Oh yeah, their mom is getting them the Xmas day so I’ll be left shuttling old, bitter, deaf women who are friends of my aunts’ mother back and forth.
Not that all deaf people are bitter, but boy does she have some cranky, unfriendly, and yes, bitter friends.
Exactly. More than anything Christmas has been celebrated because it was one of the few times of the year agrarian workers got a break- the harvest was over, the wine was ready to drink, it was cold enough to slaughter the animals and have a decent meal for a change. and it was dark and depressing so a party sounded like a good idea. Still does.
I agree Christmas has become too commercialized. Too religiosized too. So I’m going to celebrate in the old-fashioned, traditional way: cross dressing and gettting drunk in public. The old ways are the best.
Wassail, wassail all over the town
Our bowl it is white and our ale it is brown
Our bowl it is made of the white maple tree
With our wassailing bowl, we’ll drink to thee!
Yes let’s keep it religious just like in the ol’times, but not your kind of religious…
http://www.e-sheep.com/Saturnalia/
(Go here to find out about the true origins or Xmas in a nice, funny and offensive comic with nekkid toons!.. You’ve been warned)
Funny story:
My friend Sandy put up a Christmas tree in her apartment this year. She didn’t have very many ornaments, though, and the tree looked pretty sparse, so she went and got all her beads from Mardi Gras and put them on it.
The result was a beautiful tree, IMO, but she says that she can’t help but feel sacreligous about it, considering how she got the beads. I explained to her that given the pagan origins of much of our Christmas tradition, Christmas trees and naked breasts probably aren’t as idealogically far apart as she thinks they are. It’s just Christianity that came between them.
Dr. J
I’m going back to my Olde Germanic Celtic roots by festooning my tree with the entrails of my enemies, followed by several hours of quaffing mead and beer, finishing up with a small, tasteful orgy and the selection of the King of the Bean. Now to start planning Twelfth Night…
Hmm. Maybe I should take an extra vacation day off.
Christmas sounds fun when you put it that way, lucie.
Hey it’s based on Yule too! Ever actually payed attention to Deck the Halls? Not a word about Christmas.
If anyone wants to cancel it you can also use the fact that suicide levels spike right around Christmas and New Year’s Eve.
Not that I would want to cancel it, it’s fun.
Kitty
That’s, uh … very interesting.
I was reading the “Christmas” discussion over on another bulletin board, and I have some sympathy for poor ol’ Max. The women on that board (I think all of the most active participants are women) seem to be putting on a production number as much as celebrating a holiday. They post links to Web sites where they have pictures of their decorations, which needless to say went up Thanksgiving weekend. They brag about how many gifts they’ve wrapped, how many cards they’re sending out, how many people they’re hosting for Christmas dinner. Some of them are embarrassed to tell perfect strangers how much they spent on their kids’ presents… one woman was up over US$800 per child and wasn’t finished yet. :eek:
And you know what? It’s all purchased, all of it. The decorations are from a store. The cookies are slice’n’bake. The gifts are the newest, trendiest gadgets, or the sort of “thinking of you” gifts that you mass-produce at home. (Does anyone really feel special to get one of the fifty jars of “homemade brownie mix” the Smiths whipped up this year? Would anyone really be offended if the Smiths cut down their “present list” and settled for sending their real friends a short letter, “All is well here, how’s the family, how’s work, why don’t we go catch a movie together when things calm down after the New Year?”) They’re celebrating Credit Card Christmases, and if the peace and goodwill is unlikely to last all the year through, the bills stand a good chance of doing just that. Meanwhile, for all their talk about the Importance of Family, they are spending every free moment creating this fantasy, at the expense of time with the people closest to them.
So I understand the impulse to resign from the human race for a few weeks, when your morning commute takes you past a mall and the parking lots are filled an hour before the doors open, or when the idiot across the street takes a week off work to outdo himself with this year’s tacky light display.
But resistance is not useless. Resistance is possible. Resistance is good. Do what is important to you, what makes sense to you, and be prepared to tell people NO. No, we’re not going to spend money we don’t have. No, we’re not going to add stress to our lives to please other people. No, we’re not going to consume for the sake of consumption; let’s draw names, or let’s keep the gifts simple, or we already have more than we need, but if you feel you must give us something, how about a donation to Charity X in our name? No, we’re not going to try to have a seven-course meal with the good crystal and Grandmama’s antique china in the same room as a dozen overexcited preschoolers and toddlers; not fair to the kids, the adults, or the antique china. No, sorry, we’d love to come to your party but we’ve already said yes to enough things that week and were planning on spending that night at home with hot chocolate, a game of Scrabble and Grandpa’s old Christmas records.
Think, resist, and have one heck of a terrific Christmas!
Okay, fine, Christmas was never quiet; but I’ll be it wasn’t commercialized.
You know what I’d like for Christmas? Freedom from the pressure to get all my friends and family members nice presents. I’d really rather just not exchange gifts at all.
Christmas really ought to be a lot more like Thanksgiving (I’m talking about Canadian Thanksgiving, which has no real ties to pilgrims or “natives”). It should be a long weekend, at least four or five days total, where people spend time with their loved ones and eat lots of good food. Does thanksgiving need presents, a decorated tree, or songs that drive you crazy for about a month before the actual celebration takes place to be enjoyable? No, and I like Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving doesn’t piss me off; Christmas does.
Now doesn’t my version of Christmas sound much more tasteful and enjoyable?
No, they don’t.
http://www.snopes2.com/holidays/xmas/suicide.htm
Then why don’t you tell them that, Max? It’s too late for this year, of course, but give everybody ample warning for next year. Tell a little white lie about your motives if you have to, but tell them you won’t be buying presents for (adults, anyone but members of your household, anyone, whatever) and would appreciate it if they didn’t buy you anything in return.
I suspect you’ll find you’re not the only one who finds the presentmania stressful. But even if you are, what do you have to lose?
I love Christmas. I am not religious. Christmas to me is mostly a time to celebrate being alive. It is the most fun and least stressful time of the year.
I love my Christmas tree. I hate the idea of doing away with them. It is so pretty to look at. I spent last night with my SO playing cribbage in front of the fire, drinking wine, listening to Christmas music and staring at the Christmas tree. I intend to do that as many evenings as possible this month.
I like buying Christmas presents for my loved ones. Christmas is such a fun time to shop. Everything is on sale and the stores are full of energy. I don’t usually spend a lot of money on gifts. I love finding that one perfect thoughtful gift to show someone that I care enough to know what they like. I also love getting Christmas presents. My SO is a wonderful gift giver. Even when he doesn’t spend a ton of money he makes me feel like a princess.
I even love making Christmas cookies. I don’t bake often. Most of my baking gear only gets used one weekend a year. The weekend before Christmas my SO and I spend hours making and decorating Christmas cookies and candies. I find it relaxing and tons of fun. We bring most of them to our families and they are always a hit. Especially since everyone knows that I am not a baker.
I won’t let you take away my Chirstmas!
Amen, Max, amen! Canadian Thanksgiving sounds even better than our American one!
I like Thanksgiving because it’s all about food and being with your family–the only two ingredients for a proper holiday, I think! No stress to buy gifts for people you don’t like with money you don’t have…I’m relatively new to Christianity (6 yrs. and counting) and I still hate Christmas! The Jehovah’s Witnesses have the right idea, I think.
Normally I believe in keeping religion out of Christmas but…where can I get one of those to put on MY roof?!