I seem to get less tolerant every year of the dreck that bombards from every direction during this season, which I suppose is perfectly in line with being the cranky old atheist that I am. I stay away from stores as much as possible, I watch as little TV as I can, but even the classical music station gets “in the spirit” during the last week or so with semi-classical style renditions of carols and other crud of that sort.
I’m sure I’m not alone in this view, so please send me a little moral support. I could use it.
Some wonderful day, you will retire. You won’t have to do all of the workplace Xmas stuff and you will be able to do your xmas shopping on Amazon.
If you do have to go out, be sure to go to the display of those stupid singing trees and take the batteries out of all of them and leave them on the shelf behind you. The cashiers will call you a hero and you aren’t shoplifting if you don’t absently put the batteries in your pocket as you are working the shelf.
I noticed this yesterday when I was erranding. At least they were old, some very old, carols and not fancied-up renditions of modern tripe. And It was kinda nostalgic, since I’d sung some of those carols eons ago in high school chorus. But apart from that, I avoid a lot.
I will admit, I kinda miss seeing A Charlie Brown Christmas, but not enough to look for it.
Focus on the Pagan origins of the season; maybe that will please your old athiest heart more. Other people might be celebrating Christmas; I’m celebrating Saturnalia (I focus on the ‘eating, drinking and being merry’ part and skip the sacrifice part, unless you count the roast beast on Christmas Day).
I feel your pain. As an atheist it bothers me that Christmas is starting earlier and earlier each year. It bothers me when Christians argue that it’s a secular holiday, when it clearly isn’t. When I get frustrated, I think about the Muslims and Jews who have to endure Christian dominance all year long. I’ve learned to shake it off and move on with my life. We live in a Christian dominant country, and those who aren’t Christian have to learn to deal with it.
I don’t care that it’s someone else’s religion. All the evils I have written of originate from commerce, plus the egregious assumptions about the need to be jolly and generous (but only for a few weeks).
Christmas should be a day (or 12 days if you insist) but certainly not a “season.” If Christians went to church and exchanged gifts on 12/25, no would would care. But whatever the hell our society is doing now is completely nuts. We can, of course, opt out. Last year my wife and I stayed home, alone, with no lights, no tree, no presents. Pure bliss. This year, lots of kids and grandkids coming, so I have no objection to that. Tomorrow, we’ll get a tree, and it will be gone before New Years.
So you are okay with perpetuating the “completely nuts” season of nausea unto new generations? If the parents of those children really cared about you, they would tell their children “We are spending Christmas this year with Grandpa and Grandma Procrustus, and they don’t celebrate Christmas. So there will be no tree, no lights, and no presents. There will, however, be dinner.”
I’m a cranky atheist and I love the dreck–the lights, the decorations, Andy Williams, Burl Ives, Bing Crosby, Nat King Cole, Mariah Carey–it’s all wonderful.
There are a few specific things I don’t like, but I just try to pretend I didn’t hear that.
When the people outside the grocery store, with the bell and the donation bucket, wish me a cheery “Merry Christmas”, I try to make my “Bah humbug” sound as natural and spontaneous as possible.
As a Christian, I get pretty annoyed with the drek, too. There are over a thousand years worth of good Christmas music to choose from, and they’re still playing the Boomer crap nonstop? While, of course, those self-same Boomers complain about how “they” have secularized Christmas. Although I suppose that it’s not quite all Boomers… You’ll occasionally now hear some modern singer complaining about her one-night stands, because that’s totally what the spirit of the season is about.
And the Christmas season starts on December 25. The Advent season starts four weeks before that. It never extends earlier than Thanksgiving (at earliest, starting three days after), and it certainly never starts on Hallowsday.
I normally joke when I get on my horse about #EndTheWaronAdvent (and someone got all snitty with me on Facebook when I did, lol), but I could definitely do so for a Christmas channel that started in September.
Though I’m also nothing some Halloween partisans are trying to do the same creeping holiday thing and attempting to make Halloween season a thing (like beyond October)… which I’m really not fond of holidays leaping their bounds.