You gotta be shitting me! [Christmas music]

The BBQ Pit
61

Except that I’m not looking under stones.

When I was in high school, the phys ed teachers got together and put up a lovely Christmas display on the bulletin board in the girls’ gym, complete with Yule log, a manger scene, and the words “Jesus Is The Reason For the Season” in pretty construction-paper letters, along with a boombox that played Christmas carols. Keep in mind that I did not attend a Christian school; this was a public school that was nominally open to everyone living in the appropriate publicly-funded school district. IIRC, something similar happened at Easter, except that Christmas symbolism was replaced with crucifixes. It took the intervention of parents, some of whom were attorneys, to convince the principal of the school that the display needed to be augmented with symbols of Hanukkah, or it needed to come down altogether. The Fellowship of Christian Athletes also seemed to step up its attempts at witnessing during these seasons by trying to emphasize Jesus’ Jewishness.

And now, the gloves come off and the ranting begins.

I am sick and fucking tired of being told to shut up, sit down and quit whining because I am in the minority. I don’t give a flying rat’s ass that “millions” of people hear these songs and don’t get offended. I do have a problem with it and I am damn grateful that I live in a pluralist, capitalist society that allows and encourages me to vote with my pocketbook.

If you don’t like my opinions, fuck off. I’m sick of defending myself.

Robin

62

No, I enhanced my credibility by admiting I’ve never observed Christmas, and therefore was ignorant of why some of you become so deranged over it.

And I’ve never eaten a fruitcake (with the exception of that crazy chick I dated in high school).

63

And did Christmas come early that year?

64

The only ‘cite’ I have is information from a friend who was a DJ at a Minnesota radio where they did this. He said that the DJ’s were told not to come in to work for this period of time, and thus did not get paid for it. Those that had unused vacation or personal leave time could use that, and so get paid for part of the time. Otherwise they just had unpaid time off.

The station also did this around New Years – they would have something like ‘the 1,000 greatest rock songs’ that played for 2-3 days over the holidays.

They did not get unemployment benefits, because they were not unemployed, just on leave for a while. Generally the time they were off was less than the lead time required to get unemployment benefits. (Also, the attitude of the station management was such that they would probably have fired anyone who actually applied for unemployment. There were always plenty of people wanting DJ jobs.)

He used to be really ticked off by the fact that the DJ’s were expected to create the hours-long continuous tapes of songs to be played during this period – as he said: “I have to sit here and create the tapes that are going to put me out of work for a couple of weeks!”

65

Is anyone else reminded of an old-time consumer campaign which advocated buying from storekeepers of one religious group and avoiding buying from storekeepers of another?

66

Never fucking mind. I’ll just sit down, shut up and quit whining like a good little Jew should.

Fuck all y’all.

67

That was me. Doesn’t negate the sentiment, however.

Robin

68

No and fuck you, you loathsome piece of shit.

She didn’t advocate vandalism of the shops or punishment of people who don’t follow her boycott. She didn’t include Christians who don’t play the music that she doesn’t like. She did include non-Christians who do play that music.

Only the most addle brained of retards could thing that that analogy made any kind of sense.

69

Isn’t it almost entirely marketing-driven? The boobs who run our system of commerce believe that Christmas music makes us shop like Pavlovian consumers, and they’re turing it on not to celebrate any religion nor to avoid offending, but to drive that little shopping engine a few percentage points harder.

It’s contemptible, but I’m not sure how to reverse the trend…short of systematic carpet-bombing using our aging fleet of B-52s.

Sailboat

70

And God bless you.

I wasn’t referring to the Nazis, but to the “kinder, gentler” anti-Semitic “Buy Christian” campaigns which alas, also occurred in the U.S.

So bite me.

71

IMHO, Christmas music in stores wouldn’t be so bad if they stuck to playing instrumentals. Too many singers think they’re operatic when giving Christmas music and screech up perfectly good song. Also, with instrumentals you don’t have to worry about “offensive” lyrics. (Says the person whose favorite Xmas song is Blink 182’s “I Won’t Be Home for Christmas”.)

Why are you posting in the Pit then?

72

Anyone else see the Torygraph this morning?

Linky

Leave Christmas alone, say Muslims
By Jonathan Petre, Religion Correspondent
Muslim leaders joined their Christian counterparts yesterday to launch a powerful attack on politicians and town halls that play down Christmas.

They warned that attempts to remove religion from the festival were fuelling Right-wing extremism.

A number of town halls have tried to excise references to Christianity from Christmas, in one case by renaming their municipal celebrations “Winterval”.

They have often justified their actions by saying Britain is now a multi-faith society and they are anxious to avoid offending minority groups.

But the Muslim leaders said they honoured Christmas and that local authorities were playing into the hands of extremists who were able to blame Muslim communities for undermining Britain’s Christian culture.

The unprecedented broadside was delivered by the Christian Muslim Forum, which was launched this year by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, with the support of Tony Blair.

73

I, for one, am not offended in the least by Xmas music, or public displays of anything religous. As long as you don’t try forcing it into my home (like my father in-law insisting on praying at our dinner table) I don’t really give a fuck.

What I find insane is the decorations & music more than 2 months before the actual holiday. I would think it could make one absolutely bored of the holiday before it even arrives. Putting up Christmas stuff in October is like putting up Valentines day shit in December, which is like putting up 4th of July stuff up in May, which is like putting up Halloween decorations in August.

It’s all weird and boring!!

74

And you could have said so, instead of playing some coy little guessing game.

You can still fuck off.

Robin

75

As long as I don’t hear “Grandma got run over by a reindeer” I’ll be happy. I HATE HATE HATE that song. I heard it almost nonstop one Christmas season every where I went and I swear it took a lot of alcohol laced eggnog to keep me from going on a bloody rampage. :mad:

76

You know, I had returned to apologize after googling up some info about the U.S. “buy Christian” campaigns & finding that they were not as widespread but much more verbally vitriolic than I had thought (apparently, they seemed to be focused in New York and were organized by the more rabid elements of the America First/Coughlin/Bund crowds). And I still do apologize. I should have done the research before making the inappropriate comparison.

That said, regarding another culture’s/religion’s music as personally offensive when heard in a store might be indicative of some personal issues, and is not necessarily the problem of the storekeeper.

77

Since when have department stores been interested in playing good music?

78

I can’t bear the modern Santa-based Christmas songs, which is the main reason I despise the music played in this season in most stores.

Even before I reconverted, I far, far preferred the very old traditional stuff – I’m talking about the songs you don’t even tend to hear in church. I want to hear The Holly and the Ivy and Lord of the Dance and the Coventry Carol and similar. I tend to stab things when I’m forced to listen to Jingle Bell Rock.

I’ve also been non-Christian at Christmastime, and while I still found the music aesthetically pleasing and interesting from a historical perspective, I was so far removed religiously from anything Christian that I couldn’t even explain my religion to my schoolmates. As a result, I would feel vaguely unsettled at Christmas-y stuff and really, really uncomfortable when people started throwing the Jesus-bits at me.

I understand you’re offended, MsRobyn. I’m sorry to hear it, and you have every right to be upset and to take your business elsewhere. You have the right, but it sounds like you’re getting phenomenally upset by an unintentional slight. It’s possibly made out of ignorance, at least slightly, but it’s far more to do with helping the stores make money – by reminding people it’s Christmastime, they get a huge percentage of their customers remembering that they need to buy a present for Aunt Tillie.

You know they aren’t doing this to offend you. You’re a smart lady. You know they’re doing it because it’s expected and because it can help boost their sales. And if you don’t like it (because I sure as heck wouldn’t shop in a store that was playing loud music I hated) then you have every right to leave. But if it’s upsetting you as much as it appears to be, you may want to reexamine your perspective. I guarantee that if you are just complaining to a cashier-jockey they almost certainly don’t care, and if you’re complaining to the manager they’re going to look at their quarterly profits. If they’re still meeting or exceeding expectations, they’re going to shrug.

For me, this is like getting extraordinarily upset about the utterly clueless racist comments my dear departed grandmother once made. I took the view that, while I was offended (sometimes gravely) by her words, she was seventy-five and no harm to anyone and there was more chance of a blizzard in Houston than of convincing a gently batty but eternally stubborn sub-working-class Southern lady of ANYTHING, even that it was a rather silly idea to give my very-not-Christian mother a Property of Jesus sweatshirt. I could get fussed and fretful about it, but it was just going to give me ulcers.

79

Thank you.

I have to agree. I hate Xmas music and this time of year in general but I know that stores play the music to make sales and I don’t take personal offense. I actually dislike it more when they throw in a token nod to Channukah like one elf dressed in blue with a Star of David on his cap.

I have read, and I have no idea if this is true, that a lot of retail stores run at a slight loss for ten months a year and they make a killing during the Christmas season. It’s no wonder that they want to start it as early as possible.

80

I’m not sure if the former is true, but the latter often is. I know that the retail store in which I worked (in a mall) back in college did not operate at a loss during the rest of the year.