posted
No big deal. I just hate this particular season of the year. This should even be okay this year, because (1) I'm not going home, so I won't feel out of place, (2) my dad and stepmom are coming to me (I think), and that's very cool, and (3) I get to go to my friend's house for the actually day, and they are wonderful and I love her family. So that's nice.
But I hate the season part. I don't like shopping, I don't like the paganism, and I have to either walk away from all the yumminess or NOT walk away from the yumminess, which is worse. I don't like having to buy presents out of duty, and I don't like NOT buying presents out of duty. Just, in general, I dread this time of year. I miss my mom.
I do like the hymns, and I like wrapping paper. Plus, snow and twinkly stars. And wassail.
Besides Will from About A Boy, anyone else?
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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posted
It used to be my most dreaded time of year, but has easily become the most anticipated.
I can't freaking wait. And it's not because of shopping, or presents, or candy, etc. It's because l love to see how excited my kids get during this time of year. That's the best feeling in the world.
Posts: 7 | Registered: Oct 2003
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Well, I have nieces and nephews, but they are very, very far away. I'll send presents, but I don't get to be around them. I used to have my next-door little neighbor boy, but he moved with his family.
So maybe it's okay to hate Christmas for a while. It's not that big of a deal for me anyway. That's okay.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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quote: I hate early holiday decorations, early holiday sales, and early holiday complaints.
Me too. I mean, I've hated the holiday season since I was 15. I just got disenchanted with it---it's become so capitalized it's sick. Then I was 16 and got a job, and hated it even more.
Now I work in a grocery store. I swear the worst day of the year to work is December 23. Since a lot of people do family things on Christmas Eve, everyone shows up. Eight hours of complete and utter hell.
Rather 2 months of complete and utter hell.
Posts: 463 | Registered: Oct 2003
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Boo! Snow is awesome! Cold weather rules! And yes, I actually am serious. I have an odd sense of cold weather - if it's not below 0 (Celsius), I don't wear a jacket. Ever.
I hate how Christmas starts before Halloween. At least that's what the stores are telling me...
Posts: 3932 | Registered: Sep 1999
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posted
i hate 'it's november so start buying stuff NOW' early christmas. i hate being reminded how many shopping days there are till Christmas. i love putting up the Christmas tree - my family always gets a real one, and i love the smell of pine needles that permeates the house. (we don't put it up till a week before christmas though)
and i love the fruit that gets cheap around christmas... mangoes, peaches, apricots mmmmmmmm.
Posts: 4393 | Registered: Aug 2003
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posted
I used to like the holiday season. (Having my birthday on December 20th helps.) The trouble is, I haven't gotten along with my family in a long time, and now the holiday season means I have to go home to them repeatedly and be reminded of how increasingly rednecky they're getting. Not to mention having my very loving but overprotective mother try to make my decisions for me. And seeing that my grandparents are aging rapidly.
I think I love them more when I'm away from them.
Posts: 1041 | Registered: Feb 2002
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posted
I have mixed feelings. I hate: Hearing bad reditions of Xmas songs sung by people like Celine Dion who SCREAMS through a song that should be crooned by Nat King Cole. Hearing the same Xmas songs over and over except for the ones I like. Grumpy people Lack of money so I can't buy people presents, but at the same time I want presents. Never getting what I want. (such a materialist)Long lines and crowds. Them putting xmas stuff up before it is even Thanksgiving! The pressure to have to spend time with people when I have no money to visit anyone.
What I like: Snow. The Christmas Song, Have yourself a Merry Little Christmas and Silver Bells sung by people who can sing. How my friend M chan likes the holidays so much and how she walks through the streets singing xmas songs and visits a lot of freinds. Presents even if it's a rock! Cute ornament. Snowmen.
Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
i am not so fond of the christmas season. when i was a kid, christmas was awesome. the decorations, the snow, the cookies, the songs, the presents, the extra presents for my birthday four days later. now i can't stand it. i hate decorating. where i live now, it's either butt cold with no snow or we're buried under three feet. all of my family is spread out, and i don't really have anyone of my own to spend the day with. i can't get enough time off work to go anywhere. i can't afford to buy presents, so i feel guilty getting presents. as far as my birthday, i'm lucky if i remember, let alone anyone else. i don't go to church anymore, so i don't even have that to look forward to. about all i have left is the cookies. not the dozen and a half different kinds that my mom used to make and store out on the deck, but the half-eaten package of chocolate creme oreos that i was too busy to eat the week before.
the only bright light of the season for me is my friend's baby. it'll be his first christmas, and i'm already more invested in his life than in the lives of my six nieces and nephews. he is the one thing that will keep me from holing up in my apartment with my sorry package of cookies.
Posts: 1090 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
At least in Lexington, KY, companies began putting up Christmas decorations before Halloween.
I hate that in years past, I used to not want to help put up the decorations. I hate that I actually did not last year, and enjoyed it. I hate that I may well do the same this year. I hate that I will likely work twelve hours on Thanksgiving, Christmas, or both, and that I think I will be ok with that.
But even with that sad lament, I still love Christmas. Because work or no work, whether the tree is put up with or without my help, I will be with my family, and for a few hours I will focus on the immense sacrifice of Christ and the love I hold for him and my family.
Posts: 1364 | Registered: Feb 2003
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My mother makes me carry in 10 20 gallon plastic tubs full of every type of Christmas decoration you can possibly think of. It drives me off-the-wall crazy. She thinks that it's easy, and when I complain about it, she guilts me very manipulatively.
Then, she has me put it ALL back 2 months later. Posts: 354 | Registered: Jun 2002
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posted
i like the holiday seasons. i shut out the commercialism and enjoy the crispy air. i enjoy people being more mindful of others, and i love cutting out snowflakes.
and i for one love the paganism. i celebrate christ's birth, but why can't i have both? a lot of paganistic rituals came from gratitude and appreciation of the beauty around them. nothing wrong with that, in my book.
Posts: 3936 | Registered: Jul 2000
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posted
You can (and should) be able to have both, Porcelain.
No one really knows when Jesus was born, so the early church borrowed a day near the pagan celebration of Yule--the solctice, celebrating the return of the sun (the light of the world).
Just about everything associated with Christmas comes from an old pagan rite or practice.
I guess I really don't like what Christmas has become, and working someplace that gets a lot of the holiday fervor doesn't help.
I like getting things for people. Unfortunately this year, I am too broke to get something for everyone. I try to get things the person will like and can use for something. I can't stand gifts that do nothing. The gesture is nice, but uselessness really bugs me.
It just depresses me when my store puts up the Christmas stuff the day after Hallowe'en.
Posts: 463 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
Since some of us know how to make the holidays special, and some of us have issues with the relatives and world around us that have dampened the holidays, why don't we let Hatrack make the holiday's perfect for us?
This probably needs to start a new thread, but lets create the perfect holiday atmosphere right here.
No commercialization.
No shopping. (accept the mandatory purchase of OSC's books)
Presents are all virtual, and are all to everyone so even the Lurkers won't be left out.
Food is all well made, recipe's available upon request, but here, there are no calories, no fats, no carbohydrates.
Religion is honored, public to all who want to participate, but private, carried in the heart.
Finally, unless sent via a link, all the carolers are harmonically perfect.
Who's up for a Hatrack Christmas?
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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It reminds me that I don't have enough money to buy people the presents they deserve and that people will buy me presents and I'll have nothing to give them.
I hate that every year I have to choose whether I spend Christmas day with with my mother or my father's family .
I get to spend most of Christmas day in the car, driving a couple of hundred kilometres from one family to the other.
I hate that you have to be happy.
Christmas is not a time to be sad or a time to be poor.
Posts: 2945 | Registered: Apr 2000
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posted
I love snow, and cold weather, and Christmas. Sometimes I really don't like my family, but for some strange reason it always seems to just go away for about a month every year. So yeah, in a way, I do like that you "have to be happy".
I love that I now have a job and can buy people presents. As corny and cliche-ish as it sounds, I really do love giving out presents more than getting them.
Oh yeah, and I love that I found someone on the forum who shares my birthday. Yay Maccabeus! Yay for 12/20 and presents a week before Christmas! Posts: 3852 | Registered: Feb 2002
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posted
I love Christmas. I love the beautiful lights and decorations. Though the winter is the darkest time of year there are such lovely lights to brighten the darkness. There is no light display too garish for my tastes. I think they are all pure magic. I love giving presents. I love trying to think of things that people will like, and doing my best to exceed their expectations. If I'm too poor to buy new stuff, I give people stuff of mine that I think they'll love. Or I make them things that show how much I care about them. I love seeing the children so excited and happy. I completely turn back into a kid every christmas and feel the exact same way myself. I love Santa Claus. He rocks! I'm totally down with Santa. He is the man. I love fireworks and candy canes and sparklers and the candy that comes in my stocking. I love christmas trees and all the great food people bring to work and at home too. <Though I can't eat any of it now, but still it's great just to smell it!>
I love the religious significance of Christmas too. That Christ is reborn every year along with the seasons of the earth. That death doesn't win. Just when things are darkest, lo! a child is born! Posts: 968 | Registered: Sep 2003
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posted
I love Christmas. I don't give a damn about the commercialism - it only affects you if you let it. I live over two thousand kilometres from my family and I usually only see them twice a year - when I go home for Christmas is one of them.
I also rarely take holidays, so it's one of the few times I have zero work-based responsibility. The only thing I must do is have a good time and not ruin anyone else's.
I miss my parents and sister, and my new little nephew. The physical place isn't home, but my family sure is.
Posts: 2245 | Registered: Nov 1998
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posted
I LOVED Chistmas as a kid. Thinking back on it makes me almost teer up now with how awesome it was.
Two years ago though the Chistmas was horrible. My Dad was really depressed that he couldn't get us anything that we wanted (he was laid off earlier in the year after working for Carrier for 28 years), since he had loved spoiling us when he had money. In one of my worst decisions ever, I didn't get him anything. My rationalization was that I had very little money, but I'm sure a 20 dollar present would have been easy enough.
The next day he was dead.
So last year I didn't celebrate Christmas, partially because I really didn't need any reminders, and partially because I wasn't sure if I believed in Jesus Christ anymore.
I'm not sure whether I will celebrate it this year. I'm leaning toward the negative.
I do think that if I ever have kids I will try and make Christmas for them as great as it was for me though, whatever my beliefs are then.
Posts: 5656 | Registered: Oct 1999
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Javert, your birthday is 12/20? *startled* Don't think I've ever met anyone else born then. Coolness. I will be 28, two years away from untrustworthiness.
{I hope you realise you're the first recipient of my online hugs.... }
Christmas does have its good points - for me, they're not from the religous point of view, but rather how excited little kids get about it, and how wonderful that makes everyone around them feel. My little sister is 7, and the last christmas we had was just fantastic.
My parents have since divorced, so I guess the next few christmasses are going to be a bit different, but I intend on making them as fun as possible for my little sister. So
quote: I do think that if I ever have kids I will try and make Christmas for them as great as it was for me though, whatever my beliefs are then.
I completely agree.
Posts: 4393 | Registered: Aug 2003
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posted
Christmas for us is largely about getting together with family.
This year, as we should have done the last years, we're buying very few gifts and making quite a few.
I'm trying to write up a short Christmas novel for my family; my wife is doing crafty things for hers.
It's looking to be a stress free Christmas for everyone.
Oh, wait. Actually, her sister's getting married on the 27th. . . so maybe stress-free ain't the right word.
But it'll be fun. I'm really blessed to have fantastic parents and in-laws, which makes a difference at this time of year.
Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
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To me it's about celebrating family, love , life and happiness. Forget about the gifts and commercialism and all the other garbage.
Posts: 1294 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
I think there should be a law stating you can not put up Thanksgiving decorations before Nov.1 and no Christmas decorations before Thanksgiving. A month is more than enough time for those.
I love winter. I don't like really cold temps, but I love snow. To me the perfect winter would be highs in the mid 30's each day with the lows at night being in the low 20's. Each Friday night at around midnight we would get 3-5" of snow, that would stop at around 6am. That way it would be easy to clear the streets and driveways and walks and the kids would not miss any school. Also there would always be a fresh coating of snow to keep things looking nice. The kids would also always have fresh snow to play in.
My Dad's family always had the big family thing at Thanksgiving. That is still the big get together for my family. There is usually 15-20 people there, brothers, sisters, cousins, neices, nephews, a few wondering friends. Just an all around good time.
It also makes it easier to go to my wifes family stuff on Christmas, since my parents leave town right at Christmas for 6 months.
posted
((((Xavier)))) I'm so sorry. I have the same thing with Mother's Day - I missed it for the U2 concert, and my mom died less than a month later.
EG, that's exactly what I mean.
I have done a little bit of shopping. Ironically enough, the only presents I have gotten are for my best friend's baby (a six-month-old sized Santa suit. All my hatred of pagan stuff went out the window at the sight of it.) and a house decoration thingy for my brother. The middle one. The one that didn't invite to his wedding and hasn't aknowledged my birthday or me in the giving out of Christmas presents for FIVE YEARS, including last year, where we sat in a circle and I was roundly skipped over. He shrugged. Why on earth did I get him something? It is either (1) a major guilt thing, or (2) a moment of Christ-like impulse that I'm now trying to bury deeply. The present could actually work either way - it's a nice something with the Eiffel Tower on it - both a reminder of his wedding, which would work with the guilt thing, and he will absolutely love it, which works with the thinking-of-him thing. Either way, whether I mail it or not, I'm toast. If I don't send it, that could be vindictive (keeping back something he would love) or else charitable (restraining the torture impulse). Heck, I don't know. Maybe I'll get them a balloon.
*scowls* And this is why I don't like Christmas. Most of it is the elaborate social rituals, and while I KNOW the purpose of these, the purpose of Tradition, and the essential importance of continually renewing ties so we are not "clinging to a whirling, fire-smote, ice-locked, disease-stricken, space-lost bulb", I still dread them.
Best Christmas of the last ten years (this cuts out the childhood ones):
Wake up at 5:00 am. Having been instructed upon pain of death to not wake up anyone else, I crawled out of bed, dressed warmly, grabbed my Methodist hymnbook (it has way more Christmas hymns), and walked out in the beloved snow to sing and pray till the sun came up. This took about an hour. When I got back, my middle brother had heard me leave and figured out what I was doing. He was making wassail for me when I got back, and we sat and drank wassail.
Well, except for the last Christmas Day (and day) of my mission. That was probably one of the greatest days of my entire life, and if I had to pick one to live over and over again, a la Groundhog Day, that would be the day. What a great day.
Hmm... maybe I'll get people together and invite the missionaries over. We can act out Luke 2 and the wise men. That could be fun. *cheering up*
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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posted
Getting the Christmas stuff out was always an "event" in our house. My little brother and were in charge of the lights. We didn't have oodles of lights but generally enough to do something in the big front window. Our displays were often garish but we had fun doing them.
Steve's stepfather is one of those people who has to have every light placed exactly perfectly and have a better (tasteful) display than anyone else in the neighborhood. For him lights were a total chore.
This year we are going to get a tree (not enough room in our previous apartments) Hopefully he can realize it is all about having fun, not making work.
As for Christmas sucking, while it may be fun to have a birthday around Christmas. It isn't any fun to have a birthday ON Christmas, like mine is. It isn't your special day anymore because it is everyone else's.
posted
Xav, that made me cry. I'm sorry that this time of year holds pain for you. I'm impressed that you'd want to provide Christmas for your kids when that day comes. I totally respect that.
********************************* Do all of you really see all of the Santa etc stuff as "pagan stuff?" In most things around the holidays, I think there is a great symbolism to be enjoyed. Sure, people fight over the latest toy, but they're just weird. I don't think that God is upset by the way things are, I really don't(for the most part of course). I think He waits to see how we'll choose to react to it all. I have a really cool article on the symbolism of modern/capitolist Christmas written by my favorite religion prof at Ricks. I'll email it to anyone that wants it.
Oh, by the way, I adore the season. I'm choir director for my ward and we're starting to rehearse the same old carols. I brought out some old madrigals that no one recognized and we started enjoying them too. I felt better ALL DAY the day we started rehearsing them (back at the beginning of November) and it made me grateful for church. At school, all we can get away with singing is stuff in Latin. Hopefully, the anti-religious nutcases won't notice that the text for "Magnificat" really means "My soul doth magnify the Lord..." It's kind of sad that no one knows what it means, but I get a secret delight out of singing it because of that.
I love when it gets cold, I love my mother poring over the cookie recipes in the magazines, most of which she'll never ever make...but they're fun to look at. I love the glorious feeling of finishing finals and then having TIME to write Christmas cards and bake and do silly stuff. I love preparing for other family members to come visit. I love learning about the other Holidays that also take place during this season. Living in Portland has taught me a lot, as did growing up in Chicago. I love all the gazillions of service projects that everyone puts together...and I love ringing doorbells and running away. There's a lot more, but I'll return you to your regularly scheduled thread.
Posts: 6415 | Registered: Jul 2000
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Snow is fun for about a week. Then it's just a pain. Of course, when I say this, people usually say, "But it's not Christmas without snow!" Baloney. Millions of people have Christmas without snow. I didn't have a Christmas with snow until I was seven years old, and I turned out alright.
I always love the snow. I miss it. I loved it when I lived in it.
Of course, when I lived in it, I didn't drive. I walked to class and my friend drove everywhere else. My brothers shoveled the walk and the driveway around the house, and the boys upstairs did our aparment building. Maybe that has something to do with it?
posted
Well here's a link to it on the web: Article. I just sent you the word file Katie.
A couple of these probably seem farfetched, but like he said, it's a personal thing. I would add to the little child/Santa symbol that children who believe in Santa Claus have great faith that he will come to their houses. Santa Claus was my first lesson in faith. I'm old enough now to decide for myself in what and whom I will have faith, but the concept was the same as when I was little and waiting for Santa: faith with excitement, completely without skepticism and lots of hope and anticipation.
posted
when did this turn into a christmas-loving thread? it's just like the attached people taking over the singles thread. is nothing sacred?
Posts: 1090 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
One of the very few threads I have started was about hating the holidays. I'm sure it's long dead, and it was mostly about hating having a few particular days on which people were nice/thankful/giving because they were supposed to be, when the rest of the year they go back to being selfish jerks. Someone told me not to blame Christmas for that, but thinking about it still depresses me.
Posts: 3801 | Registered: Jan 2000
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