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I think it's about time people stop celebrating Christmas, except when there are children about. Conspicuous, pointless consumption. Presents for people who need/want for nothing. It's all just stupid. Give it up guys. Christmas is a big waste of money and resources. We could be colonising the Moon here!
I really enjoy the family part of Christmas but my family has gotten rational about it. The presents are for the kids. All of us adults pull names from a hat and only buy one nice present instead of bunch of separate crappy ones. Most of us are couples, so it works out to shopping for 2 presents for adults.
But the rest of it, getting together on Christmas Eve and opening the presents and then the big Christmas dinner I enjoy very much.
I also enjoy putting up the tree, but a big part of that is how much the kids enjoy helping. I don't do outside decorations, just windows.
Here is my thread on the Xmas trees and side discussions on Xmas.
We've done Kris Kindle for years, so apart from Mrs. Gadaí I just have to buy for my mother and one of my siblings but they all have everything they'll ever need. I think we should just totally stop the adult presents.
So...you're saying you don't want anything from the Secret Santa?
I'm not Christian, so to me Christmas is just the time of year when home electronics go on sale. If every major retailer in the Western world decided to have a massive sale in August instead, why, that would be my Christmas.
But...I LIKE getting presents! :)
And in good years when I'm not having trouble thinking of stuff to get people, I enjoy giving presents, too. Am doing well this year, so I'm not too stressed about it. I think overall it's fun...even before we had kids, my husband and I enjoyed putting up the decorations, baking cookies, cooking nice holiday meals and stuff like that. You don't need kids for all that!
That's what it sounds like to me! I, on the other hand, love gifts and pointless consumerism, so his secret santa is free to send his gift to me. ;)Quote:
Originally posted by Zuul
The end of December is the bleakest time of the year. It's dark and it's cold and in most parts of the US, it's constantly snowing. There are at least 3 more months until things get better and everything sucks. But for a few days or weeks, we can have trees in our house, green and brightly decorated. We can drink eggnog and eat fattening food and sing stupid songs that everybody secretly likes even if they are annoying and maybe, maybe, December won't suck quite so bad. I'm not even a big fan of Christmas (I think Scrooge had some good ideas) but I can't begrudge people the chance to party a bit.
This is less true this decade, but I find that people actually cheer up around the holidays. I remember when I was a kid in HS, my boss at the gas station turned into the nicest guy on Earth around Christmas. Whatever the season costs us, I suspect that society benefits in ways we cannot calculate.
Besides, I really, really want the time off.
I am taking the whole two weeks, baby!
(Funny story, I have to buy Sarahfeena lunch in there. We met for lunch last week, my invite...and I forgot my wallet! Ha!)
Yeah, he "forgot" his wallet. He acted all suave and check-grabby, and then I had to whip out my credit card to pay. Smooth! ;)
People have been getting together and partying at the darkest time of the year for millennia. I see no reason why this practice should stop. The Holidays aren't just about conspicuous consumption - they are also about spending time with loved ones and taking a step back from the daily grind. And food. You can have my gramma's stollen and Christmas cookies when you pry them from my cold, dead hands.
lol wut. way to miss the point.Quote:
Originally posted by OneCentStamp
For Christmas purposes you are a child at least until you have your own children. If you have neither children, parents nor significant other things are a bit more complicated.
I love getting and giving presents but I don't think the price matters much. I would be perfectly happy with a $20-per-person Christmas.
I don't care much about the cost of things, either. But, I do like to use Christmas to get some nice stuff for my husband that he would never buy for himself. Like, one year I got him a remote control airplane, which I know he has wanted for years and years but would never spend the money on. That was a nice Christmas. :)
Christmas is awful and materialistic and steeped in religious history that I, being a heathen, feel no connection to. But I still love it.
I have very fond memories of my grandparent's crappy trailer out in 'Raisinland' holding 20 or so family members. I remember the way the multicolored lights decorating the fake Christmas tree that was older than I am would reflect off of the wood paneling in the living room. I remember sitting in my living room and watching the Rudolph special for the millionth time. I remember it always being a great, fun, and peaceful time of year. My grandma passed away about 12 years ago and we stopped having Christmas there. The old trailer got torn down a few weeks back. Most Christmases now it's just my immediate family and we've gotten much lazier about the season. But I still have those memories, and this time of year continues to be one of my favorites.
And of course, I look forward to building my own Christmas traditions and forcing them upon my own, unsuspecting children in the hopes they grow up to be sentimental saps like myself.
Aw, Rabbit. That's really sweet.
Darling you're just a Scrooge face it :tongue:Quote:
Originally posted by An Gadaí
I have always LOVED Christmas and I can honestly say it's not for the gifts. While i like getting gifts, as I'm sure everyone does, I like the feeling of the season. The lights, the decorations, all the baking that's gonna be done. Another thing I love is all the classic Christmas movies like White Christmas, Rudolph, Frosty, Santa Claus is Coming to Town(all those 1960's ones), The Grinch, The Bells of Saint Mary's and loads more. I always bake cookies with my grandmother and love helping out with the big meals. I also decorate like crazy if I'm in the mood! As for gifts nothing beats seeing children open them and being so excited about the things they get. I don't mind getting homemade gifts, in fact i love them and wish more people would go that route rather than spending loads at the mall or department stores
Christmas is all about the children? No.
Christmas is all about the adults.
Adults make such a big deal about Christmas when kids are around, even when the kids are too young to care about it one way or the other. Why do they do this? To try to recapture the magic that Christmas meant to them as a child, vicariously. Adults are happy to exchange a token gift or two with each other, whereas the children are awarded a treasuretrove of materialism under the tree, without fail. Before they come to expect a huge bounty at Christmas, most kids would be happy to recieve a token gift or two for Christmas.
But this isn't entirely a bad thing.
Christmas is a time for spending together with your family. For most adults, this is motivation in itself - either the geniune desire to spend time with these people, or at least go through the motions and not look like the jerk who skipped Christmas lunch. But children don't operate like that. They need to get excited about spending time with family, and it works out well - mo' family, mo' presents. In short, we are bribing and training our kids to enjoy Christmas and, by extention, enjoy the company of the extended family.
Without children, Christmas is a lot cheaper, simpler and quieter. But so is every other aspect of your life. Christmas is about the adults - the children just happen to be reaping some material benefits.
If we are going to have a big celebration at this time of the year, let's cut the religious hooey out of it and go back to what it used to be: the celebration of the winter equinox.
If a store started a winter equinox sale here in Houston, I'd be there tomorrow morning with cash in hand.
I've applied for tickets for the New Grange Winter Solstice before but never got them. :( That would be cool.Quote:
Originally posted by Clothahump
The Gap has included a "Go Solstice!" in their obnoxious cheerleader-esque chanting in one commercial.Quote:
Originally posted by Clothahump
I think it's the first time I've ever seen such a thing in advertising.
"Go Solstice!"? Slogans like that make me want to never buy anything, ever again, ever.
Oh, it's a wretched commercial, to be sure.Quote:
Originally posted by An Gadaí
Seeing as how I'm not Christian, how I usually interpret it is that, really, I am just celebrating the solstice. It's the celebration of every day becoming lighter and lighter and even if the coldest days of winter are before us, we're given the hope of the return of spring as the sun rises a little earlier every day. No matter how endless and depressing it can seem sometimes, the cycle continues year after year. That's some powerful stuff right there.
It was decided in my family this year that each person is getting each other person one gift and that's it. Yes, that includes kids. It makes the holiday far more of a pleasure to focus on finding that one perfect gift instead of simply going along with the corporate machine.
Both sides of my family draw names and you only give a gift to that person. I have noticed more and more of my relatives hit their late 30s early 40s and start asking if a gift be given to them it be in the form of a donation to their preferred charity. I think that's quite nice. I however, will not be giving up my presents yet. There's so much stuff in the world that I don't even know exists and I appreciate any and all help in finding new and nifty things!