The Christmas Season: What's the Deal?

The bigger question is:

Who the hell puts up Christmas decorations in early November?

 

i think i heard an xmas carol recently.
it made me a little ill.

 

The Christmas decorations on Orchard Road in Singapore went up before Halloween. The Starbucks here are all decked out and serving Holiday beverages.

Our rule of thumb is, nothing before December 1.
--- merged: Nov 4, 2012 at 10:07 AM ---
Currently in a hotel room in Manila... there is a lot of God on the TeeVee here.

 

At the grocery Friday night (a big night out for me) Christmas candy was on display next to Halloween candy on sale to clear it out. Made me chuckle.

 

Bro, every semi-intelligent person knows that Christmas isn't really when Jesus was born. That news is so 90s.

But consider the alternative. No German christmas markets.



When Remixer was a little shit, no christmas markets would've made him a sad little shit.

As it is now, Remixer isn't sad.

 

I love the Christmas season. It does start too early these days, though, but hey - we know what that's all about. And it's got nothing to do with baby supermen. More season = more money. When I was kid, you always knew the Christmas season was starting on T-giving day when the Norelco Santa commercial came on:


View: http://youtu.be/718DpmQrPbg


And I love Christmas music and I have a huuuge collection of it. My preference is 1940's-50's stuff.

 

I dont decorate until after thanksgiving. Normally the weekend after.
When i was a kid i remember you never herd of Christmas til Thanksgiving.

 

my (brief and rather dismal) career as a santa claus at marshall fields in chicago did a job on what patience i had with xmas as a commercial phenomenon.

but i don't mind the holiday itself.
i don't decorate for it.
i go places that are decorated and look at things.
hello things, i say.
hello, they say back.

lately i have gone to my brother's house. the music they play makes me think about lining tacks up on a table and driving my forehead into them.

but they usually have an immense tree.
i look at the immense tree.
hello tree, i say.
the tree is usually silent.

 

Baraka_Guru: Who says, 'Christmas decorations are such an affront to Remembrance Day.'? Is the media seeking out grumpy people with nothing else to grump about?

On another note entirely, my favourite thing about Christmas was the Santa Claus parade in Toronto which didn't even take place at Christmas. My dad would hoist me up on his shoulders so I could see through the throngs of parade enthusiasts. Odd timing has been so for awhile.

I'm burned out on Christmas and for the first time we are skipping it entirely this year. The work involved to create the illusion of cheeriness just isn't worth the time & expense. Instead, we are putting all that we would have spent on Christmas towards an even more horrific endeavor in some folks' opinion--Disneyland / a week in So. California.

I'm embarrassed to say that I actually like modern ditties like "Jingle Bell Rock" (I like Burl Ives' voice) and "Winter Wonderland," probably due to being a kid in the '60's. Love the old stuff too, but all of it only during maybe the 10 days running up to Christmas.

What do I think of the commercialization of Christmas? Like you, I'm not Christian, so the whole mixing of JC with paganism doesn't phase me.

Bottom line is, it's all about selling stuff. The label 'Christmas' is thrown on to sell more stuff and that I suppose, if I were Christian would be annoying or even upsetting.

 

That's just strange. But then, people are indeed strange.

 

For us it was the arrival of the Sears Wishbook.
I could spend hours poring over that thing as a kid.
I'm pretty sure it arrived around Thanksgiving, not much before.
And my favorite Christmas song is The Waitresses Christmas Wrapping.
--- merged: Nov 4, 2012 at 6:10 PM ---

For us it was the arrival of the Sears Wishbook.
I could spend hours poring over that thing as a kid.
I'm pretty sure it arrived around Thanksgiving, not much before.
And my favorite Christmas song is The Waitresses Christmas Wrapping.

 

Yes, we used to get that, too! And my sister and I would pore through it writing down names and page numbers of presents that we rarely got.
I suppose it was presumptuous.
Still, it was fun.

 

Christmas ... yes, I love it. For me it begins around the beginning of December. My choir has its Christmas Dinner on the 12th Dec, and I'm going to a Christmas Ball on the 8th ... last year's Christmas ball was one of the happiest and saddest of occasions ... I was so happy to have been invited - it was a full tux affair, but I looked like shit, I was going kind of insane in my head, because I was dancing very well but could only dance one out of four because I had zero stamina - I was a phat phuk, a blimp in a tent, and that loss of dignity was one of the first major triggers that led to my slimming and exercising. I HAD to reshape and mighod, this year I'm Ready to Rawk. I won't ask Gillian for a dance this year either, 'cos I'm shy, but this year, at least I'll be fairly confident that she might have liked to have danced with me. And 2013 I'll be able to be happily nostalgic about what didn't happen but which was no longer unrealistic dream which, if fulfilled, could have been no more than a sympathy dance on account of her being a very nice person. Wha ...? er ... Hang on, where was I ...

Yes, I like the appropriation of pagan elements, though I'd like them to be given more official credit and respect. Like these days, in England, or at least in my part of it, we do Guy Fawkes Day, complete with fireworks, but are totally celebrating or giving cheery salutes to the simultaneous Indian festival of Divali. I suppose it's the appreciation rather than just the appropriation that I would really like.

I love Christmas music ... by which I mean Christmas carols written by dead people, especially those that have slightly jagged medieval harmonies. For Twelve years, the Anglican 'Nine Lessons And Carols' service has been something I and my choir have rehearsed up until we kick angels' asses. I hate Christmas music ... by which I mean sugar-coated elevator music. Hate, because it gives a bad name to a lot of perfectly good stuff that was created in the 20th century. I'm irritated by Christmas music ... by which I mean some of the pop stuff that came out of culprits like Sir Paul McC and Keith Emerson, the one persuading me to wear a negative IQ dribble face as I bought pickles I didn't really want, and the other making me feel guilty for being alive in the first place.

I wouldn't put decorations up before Remembrance - it would not alter my respect, my genuinely high respect for individuals who risked and lost their lives for causes that I may or may not support or despise, but, to use a 'mealtime' analogy, I do not want to start the entree of the next meal before I have finished the dessert of the present one.

I put my decorations up probably a week before Christmas - typically my PC's 'Christmas Lights' program. It is an appropriation of Atari 1040STE elements I also have a few candles going and my burner stinks the place out with essential oils of Frankincence and Myrrh (panicky spellcheck right now! ... er ... yes, I got both of the wrong). And I define Christmas as ended around ... let's look at the calendar ... this time it'll be Monday 7th of January. Then I'll feel that Christmas is over and that it is just Winter.

 

Decorations don't go up until after winter solstice. I find it differcult to feel the season of Christmas without the music and decorations.
I remember the Sears Wishbook.

 

the xmas season here is ushered in with the essex gentlemen's lunch.
nothing says xmas quite the way drinking scotch at noon and watching to see which of the flannel-clad gentlemen will end up on all fours barking like a dog.