A thread for people who can't fucking stand Christmas

(I don't hate Christmas, I just don't make a big deal of it)

http://img217.imageshack.us/img217/2131/upsidedownxmastreesm1vz.jpg

A little part of me may understand now.

One year, I was given a Grinch sweatshirt for xmas. It was nice.

i like tv.

The only thing that really wound me up was my brother emailing me to ask what I wanted for Xmas (after already taking my mother to task because he did not politically approve of the present she requested (spanish learning tapes)).

I like the idea of a big winter festival. But it is supposed to cheer people up. Not wind them up. Which is what our Winter Consumerfest does.

Xmas in the UK: watery brussel sprouts, overcooked oversized turkey with lumpy gravy, everybody drunk on lager by 11 o'clock in the morning, no public transport no nothing except crap 'xmas' tv...

Xmas in France: oysters, smoked salmon, champagne, public transport, everyone back to work the next day...

See, that also depends on where in the UK they are. Nothing like that in *my* house.

I don't get wound up by Christmas.

that would either be great or disastrous depending on which branch of the family I was visiting.

We were thinking of going to Herts to spend Xmas with family but being stuck there for four days was not our idea of a good time.

:-(

(My family are quite passionate about brassicas)

oh fuck a christmas carol.

I only really shop for my nieces/nephew and boyfriend though so it's fun.

xpost. I hate my family Dan, this is true.

ding ding ding!

(xpost, Dan OTM)

Fortunately Sis will be a little less Mrs Santa this year while she rests up with her c-section scar (the Greatest Gift of All).

(xxpost to myself about why Dan = OTM)

from a site I'm working on:
http://www.utexas.edu/childcenter/gallery/2006holiday/benjamin_kwanza.jpg

a child's kwanzza bowl. I wonder if he thought of this on his own or if he was prompted.

(OK, that's because I couldn't find the present I was going to get Mum, but still)

For me Christmas isn't that much different to the rest of the year, because we don't go anywhere and we don't have relatives over. By Tuesday night, though, I can assure you I'll be very bored of spending time with the parents.

Otto otm, enforced jollity = bummer.

Are those lights? In that case, I hope they don't run hot...

(xxpost)

I feel sad for my bf. :(

having said that i did get to eat a GINGERBREAD BABY JESUS at the weekend (after smashing its head in with a hammer first)

I also like that one about the bells that has fast singing and other people going "ding dong ding dong". yes you can tell I'm up with xmas carols.

Year before last I bought a couple of friend's John Water's xmas CD. That was cool.

oh yes and i hate the way people keep trying to bring RELIGION into it all! aargh.

Okay big fucking lols at this.

"Carol of the Bells", which is also fun.

i actually like a fair amount of xmas songs. JUST NOT SLADE.

i'm enjoying xmas, so i shouldn't really be on this thread.

but only to say YA HUMBUGS!

Sorry, dudes. Yes, I do.

plz 2 note that i added spaces so as to not brake formatting bcuz i am thoughtful and nice.

Isn't the true meaning of Christmas something along the line of thinking of others?

1) it's the end of the year and i tend to feel i've under-achieved because i'm hard on myself, lazy yet perfectionist, so that is weighing on my mind a bit
2) family are not close-knit so lots of awkward small talk ensues that is v difficult to expand on (and i've tried more in the last few years) as everyone seems so fucking dull/unwilling to talk about anything they're interested in themselves, assuming there are things (possibly not) but i feel quite detached culturally now
3) i dislike that it's not easy to move around/go where you want on the day itself esp. given that i don't drive
4) the routine of it all, the willingness by so many to do the same thing every year. i can see how it's a re-assuring thing and exercise in stability but for me it is just a reminder that things did not go to script.
5) forced sense of fun
6) gift system is balls - "get me this" vs "get me something you think i'll like" - neither approach really makes sense or is satisfying. i prefer spontaneous gift-giving. unfortunately i am poor at thinking of good presents for people (it mysteriously becomes a lot easier after the event). i can't think of anything novel i'd like other people to get me (i'd rather buy my own CDs, DVDs, books, boring stuff etc.).
7) i have less inclination to drink myself silly than most, for whatever reason. i've never been drunk on christmas day - i'm clearly just not cut out for it.
8) commercialisaton and tackiness of so much
9) shitty crackers with their shitty hats, shitty jokes and shitty toys within
10) even more crap than usual on TV (wheel out the Vicar Of Dibley etc.)

apart from all that, i'm fine with it!

11) the whole religious thing

So funny--I'm an American, I love crackers. You must be a Britisher. Christmas crackers are one of the few Britisher traditions that I totally love love love, but that's probably b/c they haven't been shoved down my throat for years.

"Ding Dong Merrily On High" or "Angels We Have Heard On High", depending on which song you're talking about.

I've never had a cracker. I want one. Maybe I should start this tradition. We play loteria on xmas at my Mexican family's house and you win little wrapped presents like hot wheels. That's fun.

When we have a child I've already decided that xmas will be at our house every year and petty family members can come or not, their choice. At my xmas we shall have crackers and loteria.

Favorite carols: "What Child is This" and whatever one starts with the thing about holly and ivy.

Coventry Carol is such an amazing song. The clear and knifing harmonies in it, and the sense of foreboding, just slay me. It's like the singers are singing over the creche and telling Jesus that his entire life is doomed to suffering.

My other favorites are "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen" (or is it "God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen"?) (I don't think it's what Dan wrote) which is a great old barnburner about benevolent dictators and wintry nights - "where the snow lay dinted" !! - and "Silent Night", which in the church I grew up in was sung with all the lights off and each person holding a candle, and no accompaniment, and I think of the guy who wrote it and how his church organ had broken or something and he had to play it to his congregation on guitar. "Radiant beams from thy holy face" - my grandmother with tears streaming down her cheeks in the glow of the candles.

And the time off work is obv. nice as it means I've got more time to do my own thing(s).

absolutely. people just trying to stir things up with the liberals. bastards.

i think we should ask rjg.

I keep seeing this in an entirely wrong context.

Shits I hate:
1) Jingle bell sounds in every single TV commercial
2) "comin' down the chimney down"
3) Christmas being synonymous with Minnesota 5-degree days of hell (though this has been weirdly absent this year; it's been in the 30s and 40s all week and I miss the snow)
4) what residual joy I have re: Christmas since converting to Judiasm being shat on by people who try to turn it into their own personal platform for whining about "secular humanists" trying to force "Happy Holidays" on people [haha xp]

AKA "The Holly and the Ivy"?

1. It is actually socially acceptable if not encouraged to have a drink at 11am in the office
2. Seeing my family. This is fine from my standpoint as they're close by anyway and I can get back to my everyday life quickly and easily at the end of it
3. Okay it makes pubs rubbish but my morning train is half empty all the time, yay
4. I like carols
5. Best part of a fortnight off work without having to take any holiday
6. Oh yeah, loads of massive fuckoff parties
7. I don't have much trouble having fun, even when it is forced
8. The sense of naive belief that the Doctor Who Christmas special won't be rubbish
9. Crass commercialism. The crasser the better. Last thing we want is subtle commercialism.
10. Religion. I don't actually believe in anything, but I like annoying self-righteous preaching atheists almost as much as self-righteous preaching Xtians.

That song was on the Xmas tape that constantly played when I worked at Casual Corner a long time ago. Horrible job, and by the end if it I hated that music.

Also, it was during the Xmas season that some woman in line to buy something literally threw the box of pantyhose she was going to buy at me because she thought she was in line ahead of some other woman. (Working in retail can make you hate Xmas.)

AKA "The Holly and the Ivy"?

Yeah, that's the one. THANKS DAN! ;)

my favourite carols = all of 'a ceremony of carols' by benjamin britten. oh, and 'a boy was born'. and 'st nicholas' while i'm at it (okay that's more general december). And all the ones with descants, and some of the ones that don't have them, and especially the ones with crunchy-close alto parts. Carols are amazing, they're so satisfying to sing.

this one has a place in my heart, because my mother told me that when she was little she thought that "round yon virgin" was "round john virgin" and she always wondered why a fat guy was suddenly mentioned.

up there with "Gladly the cross eyed bear" and "A wean in a manger"

xxpost

Oooh, and second Little Donkey, surely the most indie of carols.

Oh shit, I had better warn my mum before she buys a box of them to take back to Vermont.

my favourite carol is probably 'in the bleak midwinter'. i really really hate 'away in a manger'. 'silent night' is only good if performed by people who can sing properly. i don't like the jaunty, "wacky" carols like the glo-ooo-ooo-ria one at all. i do like 'we three kings' a lot!

otherwise the holiday is bullshit, but i've more or less made my peace with it... gift buying is a drag that gift-getting doesn't compensate for, but, you know what, i'm such a self-involved prick for the other 11 months of the year, a few gifts for the people who love me is not such a trial.

what song is this? I love the reigning sound. . .

it's the xmas single that came out on norton a two years ago, this version is from the 'home for orphans' lp that came out on sympathy for the record industry in the fall of '05. i like this one better than the 7" version.

this year I shall be at the in-laws who don't drink although G.'s mother always tries to ply me with discount liqour. I'm afraid of getting drunk in front of them though.

it's an advent carol more than a christmas one, but 'o come o come emmanuel' has an almost startling tune, a very echoy longing sound to it.

yes i do like this aspect of it. i still prefer parties in the Summer tho (long as it's not too hot).

i like the lights as well - at least the basic but colourful and not-tacky ones

i will be happier on Friday anyway as the days will slowly start getting longer again

i love January and February. the weather during them wasn't too bad this year (i remember a few sunny days outside with our office windows even open)

OTMFM!!!! That and "Little town of bethlehem" are the most twee and irritating songs on the planet. That I can think of. Right now.

u&k

Stop singing to a tree, you daft cunts, it doesn't understand.

No no no, just shut the fuck up, you twat, and sing the Glooooooooria one.

http://www.breitbart.com/news/na/061217190902.0j3m358f.html

I don't mind proper carol singers. It's the three kids and a dog who stand there, mumble half a verse of Jingle Bells, and then hold out their hands for cash that I can't stand.

I don't open the door to anyone this time of year. No, I don't want to buy your crappy cards made by local artists, or your home made yule logs with a plastic Christmas cake robin on them, or your dodgy turkeys that have come from god knows where and lived under god knows what conditions. GO AWAY.

Yes, there are! There's the awesome one and the boring one. (Can't remember which is which at the moment.)

this doesn't stop us curmudgeons being annoyed by Jehovah's Witnesses you...erm...zany oaf

Things I like about Xmas:
1) the ready availability of Xmas lights
2) having a party with my friends on Xmas day, for which I get to prepare a huge meal and all my orphaned, family-less friends come over and we get really loaded and have a jam session

i'm reasonably certain that my favorite gift this year will be a quart sized ziploc container of chex mix that my sister made for me. i don't need much more than that.

OTFM

doesn't this imply that the majority of American shoppers are not "thoughtful adult" people? seeing as how pretty much none of them resist in any meaningful way?

Dislike: When I was a kid, people complained that the Xmas season was starting even earlier than Thanksgiving. I'm sure before that tradition (almost certainly of commercial origin), there were pious people who complained that it was starting before the beginning of the advent calendar. Now it starts after Halloween. When it starts on January 7th, I think we'll be set, unless people decide to start, say, the 2008 Xmas season on 12/26/2006.

I refuse to hate Xmas as a Christian holiday 'cause it's just a re-tooled pre-Xtian holiday anyway. The most annoying thing about it reminds of the widespread taboo against PDA. If you're in the mood and everything is going well, seeing other similarly festive holiday makers fills you with warmth and hope. If you're Scrooging out or feel religiously excluded or have had it up to here with rampant consumerism or secretly (or not so secretly) wish to see your family at least dead if not extensively and creatively tortured, the holidays can fill you with a bleak, dark, view of the inherent idiocy of humanity

So, basically anyone who WANTS to buy presents for their families at Christmas is a brainwashed automaton unable to see through the Big Business Smokescreen? Is that the point you're trying to make here?

I would be fine with Christmas if everyone would just chill the fuck out already. The world is not going to end if we're short on green beans.

The market forces arose because of the holiday tradition, not the other way around. Christmas != Valentine's Day or President's Day. Also, people tend to get presents on their birthdays and anniversaries but since those events aren't tied to specific dates (like, say, December 25), there's no effective marketing push that can be structured around them.

"Commercialization of Christmas

Since the late 1800's the economic importance of Christmas has lead to concerns over what is seen as the increasing commercialization of Christmas. The 1822 poem "A Visit from Saint Nicholas" had popularized the tradition of exchanging gifts and seasonal “Christmas shopping” began to assume economic importance.[43] In her 1850 book "The First Christmas in New England", Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote a character who complained that the true meaning of Christmas was being lost in a shopping spree. [44]

The importance of the economic impact of Christmas was reinforced in the 1930's when President Franklin D. Roosevelt proposed moving the Thanksgiving holiday date to extend the Christmas shopping season and boost the economy during the Great Depression.[45] Religious leaders protested this move, with a 1931 New York Times roundup of Christmas sermons showing the most common theme as the dangers of an increasingly commercial Christmas.[46]"

Xmas-associated/seasonal gift-giving prior to the industrial revolution was scattered and a relatively minor aspect of the holiday.

I'm going to a solstice party on Friday, hurrah.

i'm not saying i'm not resistant to it, i don't think i partake in the celebration of commercialism and consumerism that is pushed in my face on public transportation, over the public airwaves, in my in-box, in the print media, etc. i think i have a fairly good handle on it. but that doesn't mean that i don't find the whole six weeks of pressure-sales tactics masquerading as a means to prove your worth to your family and friends to be wholely disgusting. and if that makes me less than a "thoughtful adult person" then i guess i can live with that.

so what? so it's my opinion.

1. A poem gets published in 1822 that popularizes the idea of exchanging gifts on Christmas.
2. Businesses respond to popular trend by offering sales.
3. By 185, people are complaining that Christmas has become commercialized.

Note how the people exchanging presents bit happens before the businesses run ads bit. Your analysis of that only works if you are assuming that "A Visit from Saint Nicholas" was written with the intent to increase Christmas sales, an assumption that is not supported by the material you present.

but actually lets celebrate whatever we fancy celebrating at the times folk memory tells us to celebrate them.

The idea that folk memory can be divorced from religion and economics is risible.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER's Christmas movie JINGLE ALL THE WAY has been voted the worst seasonal film ever.

The 1996 comedy sees Schwarzenegger attempting to secure a fantastic Christmas present for his son - but 3000 film goers polled failed to see the funny side to his festive plight, according to cinema website PearlandDean.com.

Surreal 1960s movie SANTA CONQUERS THE MARTIANS was the second least favourite film, with TIM ALLEN starring in two of the most hated 'comedies' - CHRISTMAS WITH THE KRANKS and THE SANTA CLAUSE.

KATHRYN JACOBS of Pearl + Dean says, "Everybody loves a good family film at Christmas but they can't all be classics like It's A Wonderful Life.

"We think Arnie is a very worthy winner."

Other movies in the top 10 include HOME ALONE, MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET, SANTA CLAUS: THE MOVIE and BAD SANTA.

I never posited that idea.

xpost.

The point I AM making is that the primacy currently assigned to gift-giving on Xmas is the result of market forces pushing consumerism, and that prior to those market forces coming to bear, gift-giving was a relatively minor practice in those handful of cultures where it was practiced at all.

Having a Xmas birthday = FUCKING DUD :(

then i grew up

We should make our festivals about feasting and dancing and drinking and generally having a big Saturnalia. And leave all this consumerist crap *and* the religious crap out of them.

please to concrete over

Yes, singing is U&K at Xmas.

'iteration' is a weasel word innit!

i mean, NO basically. people rly overreact to the reformation, sometimes.

What do you mean by 'people overreact to the reformation'? I think the reformation was hugely important in the development of modern western capitalism (and in saying 'the reformation' I also mean the counter-reformation, and I think both of these were at least partly caused by nascent capitalism anyway), so maybe I'm overemphasising it there? Er, anyway, surely people celebrate big cultural festivals in a way that reflects their cultural standards/mores/values/etc? And we're in a time where success can be measured in goods and in successfully-fulfilled social obligations, so why wouldn't we emphasise them at a festival which - it seems to me - is about displaying excess in a time of scarcity. People aren't just calling the sun back, winter's surely a time when one would have been reliant on stored grain and cured meat, and the prospect of running out of both was very real. To have a bacchanal in the middle of winter is a gesture of defiance against the fear of future starvation, and a gesture of faith in the turning of the seasons and the return of spring. Given that, these days, most westerners are still getting fresh food in midwinter, and future bad harvests don't have much of a meaning to us, surely we're expressing something different, but using the same mechanism.

iteration is a weasel word cos it sort of lets in a lot of parallelism and continuity-ism etc. it doesn't explain, it can't account for things. how could modern society be an 'iteration' of olden society. it mutated (well and truly) out of it.

when i say 'overreact' to the reformation i mean overreact as in they hate it so much they go over to weirdybeardy gnomes-n'-pagans shit.

xpost kate otm

yes but it also repeats. people establish traditions such as Christmas largely so they can have something to carry out again and again as a means of stability. many things AROUND it change/mutate but not so much about it really.

Enrique, I think the version of things in my head says "modern society and olden society r different iterations of the manifestation of human culture" but it's entirely possible that I'm just misusing the word. Are you sure it's a well-and-true mutation away?

I do dislike the implication that commercialism is something unnatural, something imposed-from-outside, rather than something that characterises our culture and which grew perfectly naturally from human society, and which will eventually be overtaken by something else. The "weirdybeardy gnomes-n'-pagans shit" kinda leaves me cold cos I don't believe we can go back to any 'purer' way of life, if such ever existed, so it seems like so much futile chatter.

This thread is making me like christmas more!

yeah i don't think that.

Are you sure it's a well-and-true mutation away?

yeah!

i don't think consumerism is 'unnatural' or an externally imposed thing. it has so transformed the world that i don't think there are many things we have in common with the past -- and even that doesn't bother me; but it's a cruel system based on economic exploitation of, at various points, slaves, the working class, and the third world.

"Page and monarch forth they went! Forth they went together! Through the rude wind's wild lament, and the winter weather!"

My dad always sings out very harrumphy and gleefully at the "Bring me flesh and bring me wine! Bring me pine logs hither!!" part.

If he was a truly good king he's have been calling for Oak or Ash.

I don't agree that it's a well-and-true mutation away at all! I think we've carried over so many institutions, so many traditions where even if the surface meaning has completely changed the underlying emotional need is the same, and we still have a great number of the same needs and desires and urges and so on, which still need to be dealt with, even if we're using different tools. We haven't had long enough to mutate out of the past, I think. (was there ever a non-cruel system? I suppose economic exploitation of another class/social group becomes more widespread under capitalism, and under consumerism the exploiting group seems to be getting larger and larger, but...)

xposts: Not just male-part-of-the-choir though, Tracer! The ladies get to sing the page's part, preferably in the plummiest voices they can manage.

The worst thing is trying to get the house organised. Most of our things are still in boxes, which are under boxes, between boxes and beside boxes. There are presents amongst them somewhere.

We tried to get the cable installed but the first appointment isn't until January "because of Christmas". Costing us a fortune in mobile bills.

Ordered a new front door, but can't get it fitted until January "because of Christmas". Grrrrrr.

But to be honest I think this is going to be my best Christmas ever.

Of course, this provoked endless hilarity - barely even born, and he's already Nailed Right In.

aimurchie you rock this thread.

"My life flows on in endless song, above earth's lamentation..."

This make me laugh so much, especially about the stigmata.

Ha. For a moment I thought you meant the Hemingway short story (a splendid antidote against merriment, btw).

My sister's birthday was yesterday so the whole week is one long face-stuffing. I think I'm gonna call my cousin T and hit the road with him today; only three people left to find gifts for!

gosh I am really bringing the fascinating today.

"Morning has broken, like the first morning.
Blackbird has spoken, like the first bird.
Praise for the singing, praise for the morning.
Praise for them springing, fresh from the world."

It breaks my heart.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morning_Has_Broken

I thoroughly agree, actually, but now we have globalized, multi-cultural societies with remarkable amounts of individual societal freedom so that you can celebrate Xmas or not, you can turn it into a mad rush of consuemrism or just eat, drink and be merry, or both, or neither. Look at Xmas in Japan or Halloween in France or St Patrick's Day here in the U.S. When British, say, society revolved essentially around agriculture, it was natural to show off one's success by eating and drinking intemperately on the holiday intended to assuage the gloom of shorter, colder days. Now that agriculture is no longer the mainstay of the British economy, the consuemrist bacchanal that you have now is 'normal'. Mind you, I don't much like it, but I don't think that makes it odd or unnatural.

Put your hands up if you're wishing for an non-religious midwinter overindulgent blowout and will be whingeing about hating New Year's Eve in a week's time.

If I can avoid over-drinking on NYE it should go down fine though.

If i ever get married, I want that to be part of the wedding.

There are wedding songs written to the same tune. I had one at my wedding. (this one, in fact)

The only thing I really give a toss about anymore is buying prezzies for Ms. Cat. It's especially significant this year as we're still replacing some things of hers that were taken in the robbery.

Oh, and I like egg nog. And Toblerone, which I only really eat around this time of year. The rest of the holiday can take a flying leap.

I have $0.00 so I'm getting people all my favorite sci-fi paperbacks from the used book store, which lets you have a tab of up to $30. I'm painting the boy an awesome triptych about house tools. I also got him a bunch of old Dr. Who young adult novels at the bookstore.

I'm making Archie comics covers for my sisters in law. I'm making my mom-in-law a hagiography about her life, which has been hard and insane. I'm burning warez for my birth family.

I guess that's what I like about Xmas, it kicks my ass into gear to make fun creative projects. I am proud how the only thing I've really had to pay for is shipping.

http://mattzollerseitz.blogspot.com/2006/12/5-for-day-countering-christmas-cheer.html

"We get stressed when we go shopping
We get stressed when we go shopping
We get stressed when we go shopping
There's nothing to get!"

(she swears she wrote it anyway)

hahaha, yes you can only see cartoons of santa getting head so many times . . .

or, alternatively, exchange presents and feel weird for years because of the lack of music, for you. IMHO.

I don't know about singing, but playing some happy music (Christmas or not) really couldn't hurt! So that's not a bad idea. Thanks.

Also, I guess I somehow miss out on this relentless commercialism. Where does it manifest itself? TV? High street shops? I guess I hardly encounter either of these, which is maybe why I don't really notice it.

It doesn't matter how sincere it
Is, nor how heartfelt the spirit,
Sentiment will not endear it,
What's important is the price.
---
I wuvs Tom.

children go where i send thee*
somerset wassail
friendly beasts
while shepherds watched their flocks

*mostly cuz I get to scream 'children go where i send thee!' every refrain.

i dislike:
frosty, rudolph, jingle bells, all that standard crap.