Master_Shake

Consider this a Christmas sucks free-for-all. Post nauseating stories about the blatant commercialism of the holiday, how sick your relatives make you, how lousy your Christmas bonus was, or how miserable you are realizing that although you can get drunk on Christmas, it's only a reminder that you have to spend the rest of the new year working for the man and barely eeking out a pitiful existence waiting to die.

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You know something, I don't think the sun even... exists... in this place. 'Cause I've been up for hours, and hours, and hours, and the night never ends here.

lukethebandgeek

Once you realize the "True Meaning of Christmas tm" you'll realize that all of lifes problems can be solved by giving presents. Or not. I do like Christmas though. I like to get presents and play videogames all day.

However, I do think that it is over comercialized.

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So I like Chrono... So what?

jon_264

I think that Christmas has become an excuse for major stores to hike up prices just to meet their targets. I enjoy the time of year but feel that it all starts too early with decorations going up straight after bonfire night.

avernus

Here in the UK all the stores are panicing because fewer people are purchasing their crap for christmas. The result is lower prices, which is nice because I just bought myself a new coat.

I reckon xmas is about food, lots of lovely, tasty food. And wine, whiskey and port, fine ales and falling asleep drunkenly on the sofa. In Italy its all about the food and the family, which is how its supposed to be.

absorbentishe

Dude, that's a pretty poor attitude about Christmas. Yes, it's been comercialized. If your relatives make you sick, then <I>you</I> have issues, not them. Christmas bonus, what's that? I've never had one. And finally... working for the man, waiting to die? Gesh, get this guy some prozac.

Seriously, it's like anything else in life, it's what <I>you</I> make of it. If that's all you think about, then you need to think better thoughts. We all have our issues/problems, but to blame them on a holiday, there's an issue that needs addressed.

Master_Shake

Maybe so, but the greatest description of a Christmas I've ever read is in the Autobiography of Frederick Douglass. He describes how the slaves were allowed to get drunk on Christmas. At first, he considered this a showing of sympathy and genorosity on the part of the slave owners. But he soon realized how insidious it really was.

First, allowing the slaves to get drunk only one night a year ensures that he/she would get very drunk, and as a result, suffer the monstrous hangovers the next day. Imagine being sent out to work (hard physical work, not some office crap) at 5 AM the day after a whiskey binge. Such effects ensured the slave was none-too-eager to engage in such conduct again.

Second, allowing the slaves to get drunk lets them blow off some steam, and helps to diffuse potential rebellions. Were it not for Christmas, the slaves would have revolted long ago. Consider that the next time you're knocking back some eggnog.

Christmas kept people in bondage.

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You know something, I don't think the sun even... exists... in this place. 'Cause I've been up for hours, and hours, and hours, and the night never ends here.

zenmaster10665

I love xmas. It is a time when I get to see my family and friends on the other side of the Atlantic.

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"Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before.
He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way."
-Kurt Vonnegut

tropple

No, christmas is what you make of it.

It's an opportunity to ignore how screwed up things really are and pretend that everything is okay.

Just go with it. Enjoy yourself for a few days.

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+++++++++++Boom!

Grasshopper Green

I love Christmas. I didn't get to celebrate it as a kid, so I go all out now.

Yep, its over commercialized. Yep, the crowds are pain, the parking is a pain, driving in the snow is a pain.

Christmas is about family. Your relatives make you sick? Don't speak to them. This year we will be celebrating without my brother, who passed away over the summer. It's going to be hard, but we're going to do it anyway because we'll be celebrating his spirit and the family we have left. It's not just about buying people stuff and spending lots of money....its what you make of it.

Master_Shake

But the problem isn't that it's ignoring how screwed up things really are, the problem is that it's actually contributing to the maintenance of how screwed up things really are.

Consider that the cheap plastic toys and electronics you buy come from people who can't afford to buy that same cheap plastic shit!

Consider that the lovely diamond you buy for your significant other is not a rare stone at all! That you have fallen victim to the greatest marketing ploy in the history of retail, and that you have subsidized cruel third world dictators who may have killed someone just to ensure that the stone found its way onto your girlfriend's pudgy little finger.

Consider all the positive that could come from the millions of work hours currently allocated to satiating your children's greed glands. If everyone contributed to some truly awe-inspiring global goal instead of going to the mall to buy a pair of sneakers with lights in them.

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You know something, I don't think the sun even... exists... in this place. 'Cause I've been up for hours, and hours, and hours, and the night never ends here.

whelming1

Your last point, about the cheap plastic and marketing ploys, etc., is valid. One step you can, and perhaps should, take is to make it a mall-free Christmas. Buy from stores that sell work from local artists. I don't know or care where you are, but the odds are excellent that you are near local artists, who need the money and the recognition. I cannot imagine buying a video game for a child, or a cheap plastic anything for anyone for Christmas. Avoiding the crowds is not that hard. Seek out the small shops. They need your help.
That won't cure everything you've brought up but it will make a big dent.

tropple

Well, okay. Now that you put it that way. I guess I'll kill myself.

Nah, not really. You can rant and rail about injustice all you want. For the most part, it has the same effect as tilting at windmills. All it does is raise your blood pressure.

Age and experience brings a different persepective.

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+++++++++++Boom!

Master_Shake

I'm not suggesting a positive course of action here, and I'm not naive enough to think that anything can be done about it. But the first rule should be "do no harm." Christmas causes a lot more harm than good in the world. Making the rich privileged class feel even more so should not be a societal goal.

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You know something, I don't think the sun even... exists... in this place. 'Cause I've been up for hours, and hours, and hours, and the night never ends here.

Stompy

Christmas is pretty cheesy.

The only good part about it is that it's the time when family is supposed to get together, but our family gets together for 4th of July as well, so it's no more important than that.

It's an inconvenience. I hate how everyone is "buy buy buy". The drones at the malls creating massive crowds that do nothing but waste time for people who aren't there christmas shopping.. ugh.

I'm limiting my christmas budget this year to $150. I don't like being forced to do shit... I don't like feeling as if I should HAVE to spend massive amounts of money I wouldn't spend otherwise.

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Charlatan

For me Christmas is really about getting together with the various parts of my family... It is spread out over about three or four days as we visit: my mom, my wife's mom, my wife's dad and my brother (used to be my dad but since he died we now just visit my bother and his lot).

We don't spend all that much on presents and don't expect to get many (although it is nice to get them).

For the most part it is just a relaxing time to get caught up with the family and eat some food... Sure there is a lot of commericalism out there and I agree it sucks. The best thing to do about it, if it bothers you, is to not participate. Stay out of the malls. Turn off the TV.

Give some money (or time) to those who don't have anything. Strive to make the world a better place and you will do the best thing you can do to strike a blow against the commercial monster that Christmas is...

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Rodney

If you've got a good family, Christmas can be fine. But if, like mine, it's the time of year when everybody gets together and _acts_ like they like each other, just to please Mom, then it's rather an empty exercise. I belong to one of those families. And while we're always expected to travel 100 miles to Christmas at my sister's, the rest of the family never wants to come down _here_ from Christmas. It's just "too much trouble." So we either spend the day in nightmare traffic (commuting from one end of the Greater San Fran Bay Area to the other), or we're the party poopers who don't care enough about Mom to come. Sister, of course, never has to budge from her house.

Techno

Dude, you're problem here isn't specifically with Christmas, but with the disgusting waste of human material that is capitalism.

My personal take is that mainstream Christmas is pointless. I don't do presents, I don't really do family, and I'm certainly no monotheist, I use it for a few days of peace and reflection on the past year. Which to me, is what it was meant to be about.

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anleja

This'll be my daughter's 3rd Christmas. The place I worked at closed a month before her first Christmas. The place I was working at before her second Christmas cut everyone's hours from 40+ to 8-15 hours a week. This year, I got laid off AGAIN a week ago, due to "lack of work."

So, I'm glad my daughter is too young to realize how crappy her Christmas has been since she was born. I could really care less if I get anything, but I really wish I could get her something awesome some time for Christmas.

Maybe next year I'll have a job that won't lay me off or cut my hours with than a month to go before Christmas.

blitz.fenix

Seeing the Christmas parade on one channel then switching the channel and seeing kids in Africa without food and dieing. Yah it put me in the mood alright

FL8ME

You think commercialism is bad in the States? I live in a country where Christianity accounts for less than 5 percent of the population, but Christmas is a massive event. The only reason it exist here (Japan) is to jack up prices and drive people to buy shit they don't need.

Antikarma

I do think Christmas is an excuse to sell crap. I do think its overcommercialized. BUT, that being said, ANYTHING that brings my family together, makes my two little daughters light up with smiles, and puts that look on my wife, I'll pay money to be a part of.

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"Whoever you are, go out into the evening,
leaving your room, of which you know each bit;
your house is the last before the infinite,
whoever you are."

Prince

It's too much fucking stress is what it is. I'd like it if it weren't for all the goddamn stress.

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tecoyah

Might I suggest A new direction for your Christmas.....perhaps the actual reason this Holiday season was created. I am in agreement with the commercialization of this Holiday, and have not celebrated Christmas for many years. As it is likely the Christ was not born until Sometime in the spring....it seems a bit of a false holiday to many.
Solstice and Yule have "filled the void" in my the lives of my family, and many of my friends, as these celebrations have much meaning to us, and carry a message we truly enjoy.

http://www.candlegrove.com/yule.html


Just My Take.......Have a great Holiday, regardless of WHY you celebrate it.

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Amano

Holy Jesus, I think Master_Shake wins the award for this thread. That was awesomely bitter

Jesus Pimp

I don't like forced holidays. I think everyone should get choose what days of the year you want off. Forced holidays are inconvinient and stressful for people. People need to spend more time with their families outside of holidays. Lastly parents you need to stop lying to your kids about Santa Clause.

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irseg

Here are my two problems with Christmas:

-The timing. I go through all the trouble of traveling in shitty weather to see my family for Thanksgiving, then have to do it *again* just a month later! Can't they spread the holidays out a little more?

-The boredom. My family gets together on Christmas Eve. So on Christmas day, there's NOTHING TO DO!! Pretty much all stores are closed. Most of my friends are busy visiting with their families. I spent the day pacing through my mom's house, washing my car, going to the one convenience store that was open to get coffee, pacing some more, then finally meeting up with a friend and getting hammered. Then when everything returned to normal the following day, I was too hung over to enjoy it.

Sbudda

Boy, all of you had a sad Christmas.

The time is stressful for me because both my wife's and my parents are divorced (and her mom is getting another one this year) so we have to somehow fit in 5 families to visit, not including grandparents.

But with the stress of trying to make time, I do get the chance to celebrate differently with each family. At my mom's house we all got together, ate and played cards. At my father-in-laws we ate and watched the Twilight Zone. At my mother-in-laws get got drunk as skunks and then ate. At my father's we will get drunk and sing karaoke.

And that my friends, is what Christmas is all about. Getting drunk and singing karaoke. Oh, and seeing the look on my sister's face when my niece unwraps another messy, noisy present from her uncle. Take that sis!

I can understand some people's stance that christmas is overcommercialized, but that really seems to be your problem. One of my families made this year a handmade Christmas, where if you gave a gift you had to have made it. It was nice to see the family show off their diverse talents.

But even the other families draw names so you only have to get a gift for one person in each family so the cost isn't too bad. It makes it so you can get them something nice, as opposed to a $5 piece of crap. For the parents, all of the kids go together and get them something really nice that they actually want (DVD recorder this year).

Of course, how can I hate Christmas when my wife says "don't buy me jewelry, buy me an amp".

Bryndian_Dhai

I haven't been christian or celebrated "christmas" in years. Unfortunately, my conversion did not sweep like brushfire through the rest of the family, and they all still do celebrate christmas.

I have always made gifts and in general worked very hard to make sure that the gifts our friends and family receive from us do not reflect some capitalist ideal, rather they reflect the love and care we feel for them, and their gifts are personal and special for each one of them. The kids in our circle of relatives and friends have learned to expect time from us, rather than money or expensive crap they don't need.

The key to all this is to spread the work I do for the holidays over the course of the entire year. Our friends and family know that we do not limit our generosity and sharing and love to one time of the year. The holidays, for us, are simply a time to reaffirm something they already know.

Mind you, I understand where Master Shake is coming from.... I find it very difficult to face the expectations of my own family, who all seem to believe that somehow, miraculously, I will all of a sudden, once a year, suspend my distaste and revulsion and compromise my beliefs, pretending I am not pagan or that I give a shit what new disgusting display of tasteless ostentation my stepfather has bestowed upon my mother or show anything other than resigned lack of surprise when my demon spawn nephew does something else to demonstrate how pathological and socio- or psychopathic he is becoming. I don't need yet another piece of jewelry I will never wear or a new car every year to feel validated or for proof that my husband loves me. I don't need the trappings of christianity to feel in touch with the mysticality of the universe. I don't need children to make me complete.... I've done that all by myself, kicking a drug habit, making a good life for myself, marrying a man who loves, trusts and believes in me....

*sighs*

I told myself that this wouldn't be a rant about my family, but I'll be damned if I don't still have a bit of resentment and irritation. It has only been two days, so I guess its just still fresh, lol.

The problems Master Shake has with christmas are fairly similar to the problems I have with christianity in general, more specifically the actions of people claiming to be christian and who seem to think that being christian will excuse even the most depraved, selfish, greedy behavior.

All I can say is that I'm glad its over... my dogs are glad its over.... my hubby's glad its over..... Now I can clean my house and get back to the normal business of living.

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