BS: 12 months of Xmas

Subject: 12 months of Xmas
From: Morticia
Date: 18 Nov 00 - 07:21 AM

Today marks a low spot in the calendar for me as here in UK every shop, every mall, every restaurant and pub, haul out their decorations, winch up the christmas tunes ( has anyone EVER heard a decent, made for the christmas market, song?), drag out some poor old, gin- soaked pensioner, dress him in moth eaten red and leave him to the mercy of small children, as well as refusing to display anything not connected with presents....including re-packaging the same crap stuff they've had in stock all year with a bit of tinsel and promoting it as a 'Gift Set'.
Today is the 18th of November, we will now have this carry on for 6 weeks while children hyperventilate every time you take them out and get so worked up, the day itself is a huge let down,people out looking for a pair of socks get pushed and pummeled by sweating,panic-stricken shoppers and those with no money/friends/family are reminded at every hands turn that they are 'missing out',unloved, unwanted.
I hate it!!Not Christmas, but the prolonged, rank commercialism that seems to go hand in hand with it. Does it have to start this early, has it started where you are?Am I a miserable old grumpy -knickers?
And if so.... HAH, BUMHUG!

Subject: RE: BS: 12 months of Xmas
From: AllisonA(Animaterra)
Date: 18 Nov 00 - 07:24 AM

Sweetie, the store displays start here in September. The tv ads start right after Halloween (another reason I eschew tv!). The community Tree-Lighting Ceremony will be next Friday and I'm a party to the first part- my chorus is opening the festivities! THAT'S how I counter-act- with real music, real events, and time spent with friends and family and not at the mall.

Subject: RE: BS: 12 months of Xmas
From: Michael in Swansea
Date: 18 Nov 00 - 07:35 AM

I'm with you on this one Morty. Too comercial, Christmas in Swansea starts November 1st and that's not only in the shops. A couple of my neighbours put their trees up on November 1st. Every year I ask myself "Why so early?"
BAH HUMBUG to commercialism.
I just realised you didn't say BAH HUMBUG. Oh well.

Mike

Subject: RE: BS: 12 months of Xmas
From: Naemanson
Date: 18 Nov 00 - 08:39 AM

Well, I cannot disagree. Christmas starts here between Halloween and our Thanksgiving holiday. The stores started decorating two weeks ago. I have yet to hear any Christmas music yet but then I don't go into a store unless I need something and the only thing I use my TV for is rented movies and reruns of Star Trek.

Didn't Louden Wainwright write a song about Christmas coming too early?

Subject: RE: BS: 12 months of Xmas
From: catspaw49
Date: 18 Nov 00 - 08:56 AM

Oh my........Why, its all so lovely.........Why can't we have Christmas the whole year around?

BLAMM.....BLAMM..BLAMM.....BLAMM...BLAMM

Alright, who shot the fockin' goody two shoes?

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: 12 months of Xmas
From: alison
Date: 18 Nov 00 - 09:01 AM

Eric Bogle has a great Christmas (or possibly "Anti-Christmas) song......

called... "Santa bloody Claus".... wish I could remember some of the lyrics......

slainte

alison

Subject: RE: BS: 12 months of Xmas
From: Morticia
Date: 18 Nov 00 - 09:20 AM

As an aside, I've just braved the crowds to go and get some stuff for Fiona's birthday next weekend...trying to cross a busy road, I was standing next to a grandma, mother and two small kids, one of whom was so eager to get to the shops he made a mad dash half away across before he realised there was a car coming.Grandma pulled him back with a shriek and said , and I swear this is true," You don't want to get run over when it's so close to christmas!"( presumably any other time is fine)......exit small folksinger, giggling like a madwoman.

Subject: RE: BS: 12 months of Xmas
From: Allan C.
Date: 18 Nov 00 - 09:31 AM

It all started with some folks who were warding off the potential evils of the shortest day/longest night of the year through joyus celebration. Then it was hijacked by the Christians. Next it was hijacked by the entrepreneurs (working hand-in-hand with the Grinch). What's next?!!

Separate thought follows:

I have more or less stopped doing the Christmas gifting thing in recent years. This evolved some time after my kids were grown. For a couple of years I collected gifts during the months leading up to the "season", thus avoiding the shopping frenzy. Eventually I decided that there was no reason to hold onto the gifts all year long. Now I give my "Christmas" gifts whenever I please. In this way, it DOES become Christmas the whole year around.

(Plus it entirely does away with the post-season letdown;-)

Subject: RE: BS: 12 months of Xmas
From: John P
Date: 18 Nov 00 - 09:47 AM

My wife and I decided to step away from the commercialism of Christmas several years ago. It's been great. We don't buy presents for anyone, and no one buys presents for us. We have a few close friends with whom we exchange home-made items or baked goods. None of the silly spending frenzy, and we don't have to go into malls or stores at all during the last two months of the year. Since I don't listen to commercial radio, or watch much TV beyond Buffy, I am able to pretty much able to ignore the whole Christmas in October and November phenomenon. Spending the Christmas season without being frantic is so much nicer. We have a few albums of traditional and/or historical Christmas music that we start playing in mid-December -- we don't even have to hear any of the endless repititions of the 25 most popular Christmas songs. The only reason I am even thinking about Christmas at all yet is because we booked three concerts where we are supposed to play traditional and/or historical Christmas music and we have to start practicing.

John

Subject: RE: BS: 12 months of Xmas
From: Alice
Date: 18 Nov 00 - 10:00 AM

I have noticed this year that the usual Christmas frenzy focus has been toned down because of the election snafu focus. Anyone else in the US notice this, too? Usually, by the time Jack o'lantern candles were going out, we would be bombarded by Christmas commercialism at every turn, but this year the vote count has everyone's attention.

Subject: RE: BS: 12 months of Xmas
From: hesperis
Date: 18 Nov 00 - 10:35 AM

I think that the lights should go up as soon as Halloween's over, and stay up all winter. It just gets too dreary and grey outside. The tree definately comes down after Christmas, though. And it goes up on or after my birthday, Dec 8.

Of course, being Wiccan, (and easily bored and depressed by grey,) the next festival's decorations go up after the Christmas decorations go down, so I get a nice change of scene. But it's still pretty, and still warms my heart.

With the gift thing, I usually end up with some people giving me gifts on my birthday, some on the Solstice, some on Christmas eve, a few more on the 25th... Then there's New Year's parties, my parent's birthdays, Brighid's Day... I don't get gifts in January, but it's still a lot of fun.

Subject: RE: BS: 12 months of Xmas
From: Wavestar
Date: 18 Nov 00 - 11:04 AM

Morty, I have to agree, but if your decorations / shops / etc are only starting now, you're very lucky. Up here in Scotland they've been up since mid-October, if not before. Madness.

-J

Subject: RE: BS: 12 months of Xmas
From: mg
Date: 18 Nov 00 - 12:55 PM

we all can decide how much of which holiday we want to celebrate. Children need something, if their religion allows...but the rest of us can go down to absolute zero in terms of cooking, shopping, entertaining other adults. If there are children, they can do all the decorating, most of the cooking (slice and bake cookies if necessary) and pick out a couple of special events. Just because they build it we don't need to go. But shopkeepers etc. need to earn a living and this is their best time. People working in little alley sweatshops in the third world, sad as it is, probably make much of their living by making trinkets. They need to eat. I say take or leave it but let others enjoy it and profit from it. mg

Subject: RE: BS: 12 months of Xmas
From: Ebbie
Date: 18 Nov 00 - 04:01 PM

Mary Garvey, your take on it is a more generous one than mine. I think that we Americans, as a society, have been so expertly conditioned and tweaked and prodded that we don't even recognize the manipulation- we think we have chosen on our own to be more giving, more thoughtful and loving.

This began a long time ago and will only get worse in my opinion. One of the oddest anomolies is how we have expanded the time span of observance. Years ago, Valentine's Day was eagerly awaited by youngsters and was swiftly over; now it lasts more than a month. Easter Sunday was a dress-up day and an egg hunt for the children- how long is the stuff in the stores now? Mother's Day has morphed into a 6-week long guilt trip.

On and on, culminating in the 2-month plus inundation that we call Christmas Day.

Bah Humbug, indeed. It all comes down to the money. 'Holidays' have become a megalopolis (Holliopolis?). Maybe we need to proclaim it as such and celebrate everything all the time, simultaneously.

Ebbie

Subject: RE: BS: 12 months of Xmas
From: Quincy
Date: 18 Nov 00 - 04:21 PM

Morticia.....you weren't in that so-called mega, huge, ultra super new shopping centre in Southampton today were you?

I was!!!! It was mad and I was mad for going!

best wishes, Yvonne

Subject: RE: BS: 12 months of Xmas
From: Morticia
Date: 18 Nov 00 - 05:20 PM

Hell no, Yvonne!!

Subject: RE: BS: 12 months of Xmas
From: Thyme2dream
Date: 18 Nov 00 - 09:25 PM

I think all this Christmas early stuff is a good exercise in remembering innocence....you have to put on your little kid starry eyed glasses and ignore all the commercialism that you never noticed anyway when you were small--and then its magical and warm and fuzzy again and you can enjoy it. Sort of an 'if you can't beat em, join em' mentality, but it works for me.

Subject: RE: BS: 12 months of Xmas
From: Penny S.
Date: 19 Nov 00 - 02:46 PM

Santa arrived down the road on the 8th. the weekend traffic to the mall is dire, with us locals either confined to home, trapped in major jams or having to go miles out of our way to find routes the lemmings don't know. Why don't they design routes so neighbours can go about their normal lives? Down in the mall it is packed, and ghastly for anyone with borderline agoraphobia. Why did the conservative defenders of the 10 commandments allow Sunday shopping?

And, more grinching, many of my friends and relations have birthdays in this quarter of the year, and it is impossible to get cards which are not a) soppy, b) passionate, c) crude d) kiddy cards with ages and badges.

Penny

Subject: RE: BS: 12 months of Xmas
From: DougR
Date: 19 Nov 00 - 04:27 PM

Christmas advertising must start earlier in Great Britian than here in Arizona (USofA). It usually starts here the day after Thanksgiving (11/23). Haven't been to a Mall recently, so I can't say for certain that it hasn't started here yet, but if it has, it is the earliest ever in my memory.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: 12 months of Xmas
From: Wolfgang
Date: 20 Nov 00 - 04:28 AM

Christmas comes but once a year: A fine parody weritten by Enoch Kent. One of my early successful requests in Mudcat.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: 12 months of Xmas
From: Bagpuss
Date: 20 Nov 00 - 05:21 AM

There are some decent Christmas songs if you look hard enough. Personally, I never feel its the christmas season till I have heard Fairytale of New York (Pogues and Kirsty McColl). With my hubby its Last Christmas (Wham) - but I have to forgive him for that.

Bagpuss

Subject: RE: BS: 12 months of Xmas
From: LR Mole
Date: 20 Nov 00 - 09:41 AM

Grumpy-knickers?Well, I don't know...one has to practice so much selective perception that ignoring the big X until a teeny bit before THE DAY isn't so hard for me. On the other hand maybe that's why we haven't been annoyed so far: the "election" has consumed everybody's tedium-noticing energy. Hesperis, I've begun wearing more and more grey these days, instead of black.Am I fading away or just becoming more dreary? Also, as a grey-hair-and-beard guy (with little glasses, yet) I find the gimlet-eyed notice from the tiny ones a little disquieting. Mostly I dislike the struggle with sadness and exhaustion. So a significant part of the Yule will be with Y'all, for me.

Subject: RE: BS: 12 months of Xmas
From: Tomsk
Date: 20 Nov 00 - 10:00 AM

....You can always tell when Christmas is coming.. Harrods put up their Easter Display...

Subject: RE: BS: 12 months of Xmas
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 20 Nov 00 - 10:28 AM

Wasn't "Gaudette" (sp?) recorded by Steeleye Span released for the Christmas market? That was a pretty good song - but I suspect nothing to do with Christmas. I don't do latin so I don't realy know. I reckon you can't beat Noddy Holder bellowing out "Iiiitttttssss Chhhrrrissssttttmmmaaassss....." for the ultimate Christmas song though!

Anyway, who said "gimlet-eyed"??? And what has one of Tolkiens dwarves got to do with Christams anyway???

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: 12 months of Xmas
From: Catrin
Date: 20 Nov 00 - 10:44 AM

Morticia - read this for soma christmas alternatives.

Subject: RE: BS: 12 months of Xmas
From: GUEST,bbc at work
Date: 20 Nov 00 - 11:57 AM

Fellow Scrooges,

In New York, it's started before Thanksgiving this year & the commercialism makes me want to vomit. The clerks have now been instructed to tell me to "Have a Happy Holiday!" instead of a "Good Day." I wish I could hibernate until after January 1st. Instead, I will make a few meaningful donations to Salvation Army Santas, w/ a friendly word & a hug; we will celebrate mostly religiously, rather than w/ gifts; I will send notes, not just signed cards, to keep in touch w/ friends; & I will do my best to limit myself to the "express" lines in the food stores & to avoid all other stores as much as humanly possible. Instead, I'll try to find quiet places, lick a few snowflakes, look at the stars, & thank God for the gift of His Son.

best to all of you from New York,

bbc

Subject: RE: BS: 12 months of Xmas
From: SINSULL
Date: 20 Nov 00 - 12:14 PM

"Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer" works for me. Remember the depressed DJ who locked himself in the booth for hours playing it over and over until the police broke in and tucked him away somewhere to recover his Christmas cheer?
I decorate a balcony door with lights and wonderful ornaments the day after Thanksgiving. Little children stop by and look in wonder at the toys and animals. Gives me chills. I used to bake - but everyone is on a diet or watching their cholesterol. That is my real Christmas joy - the kitchen filled with the smells of baking cookies...but Gary Null screwed that up. So now I slam a treeful of crap in a corner, wrapped unwanted gifts and grit my teeth until it's over.
But all year long, I give special gifts to special people and "spend Christmas in my own way" like E. Scrooge.

Subject: RE: BS: 12 months of Xmas
From: mousethief
Date: 20 Nov 00 - 12:49 PM

I try not to go near malls even during the off-season. This time of year they're maddening. My wife and I shopped in downtown Seattle last year, taking the bus from a parking spot on a nearby hill. In part to "help" the merchants who had been hurt by the WTO-related vandalisation. It was much nicer than any mall.

The kids love this time of year, and having 5 of them, we don't want to take that away.

Of course all the feasting and indulging is rather mitigated by the fact that we're fasting from Nov 15 through Christmas Eve (with a one-day exception for Thanksgiving). We try to get the tree as close to Christmas as possible (usually the weekend before), and keep it up through Twelfthnight.

Thus for us it's already Advent, so the "early" stuff isn't all that bothersome. Wish they could invent good-tasting soy milk, though.

My Christmas blues always came from wondering if my mom liked what I got her. But after a lot of counselling and some antidepressant therapy, that doesn't bug me as much any more.

Alex
O..O
=o=

Subject: RE: BS: 12 months of Xmas
From: Morticia
Date: 20 Nov 00 - 01:27 PM

Perhaps I should balance my original post ( which was made in the spirit of toothache as well as real disgruntlement) by saying that I love the day. I love having my family around me, all the laughing and teasing as we open successively ridiculous presents,I love the old carols and the re-runs of 'It's a Wonderful Life' and playing endless games and eating stuff that's bad for you.It's the overly long and cynically crass exploitation of the spirit of christmas that I find depressing and the effects on the poor, the lonely and the ill.

Subject: RE: BS: 12 months of Xmas
From: Homeless
Date: 20 Nov 00 - 02:02 PM

In the same vein as what Morty just said, and Spaw said earlier, I went into a grocery store a week or so back. Up near the registers was a box for food for the needy. Next to the box were already packed grocery bags with prices on them - $5, $10 or $20. Making it real simple for Jane Citizen to pick up her donation, pay for it, and drop it in the box. Talk about taking all the fun out of doing a good deed. "It's the thought that counts." But thanx to Kroger, now you don't even have to think!

But what really blew my mind was the sign posted next to the bags that started off with "Now is the time of year to feel good about yourself and help other people." That was as far as I got reading this paragraph-long sign. I just stood there with my jaw hanging slack, not believing that people can be so self centered. "Now is the time of year"? Wouldn't it be nice if people were kind, considerate, and helpful all their life instead of just one month a year?

Get rid of the retail stores and spend some time in your heart starting at Christmas.

"Hey, you, living in the shopping cart. Fuck you. It's December 26th. I don't have to be nice anymore."

Subject: RE: BS: 12 months of Xmas
From: LR Mole
Date: 21 Nov 00 - 11:41 AM

I love the phrase "spend some time in your heart." Not read it before.

Subject: RE: BS: 12 months of Xmas
From: Wesley S
Date: 21 Nov 00 - 11:50 AM

A review I heard on the radio { NPR I think } commented that in the new Grinch movie the Grinch complains about the commercialism of Christmas too. But the reviewer couldn't get it out of his head that Jim Carey was paid $20 Million to do it.

Subject: RE: BS: 12 months of Xmas
From: GUEST,Alex H.
Date: 21 Nov 00 - 12:10 PM

True confession time.

For years I felt (or thought I felt) the same way as Morticia, but a long while back I either changed my mind or suffered an attack of honesty with myself, or maybe my brain just finally melted. Anyway, I finally admitted that I LOVE the unbearably crass, super-commercial, over-hyped XMAS modern merchadising has produced! I was a greedy materialistic kid and the favorite nephew of people with extra money who weren't afraid to spend it. I have a storehouse of great Christmas memories, not a one of which is the least bit uplifting or spritiual or worthy of a touching short story. I still remember the year I got the BIGGEST Erector Set ever made and built the 6' Parachute Drop. I loved shopping for my kid before she grew up, moved away, and got married. I loved going to Toys-R-Us and buying her all the stuff I would've lusted for when I was her age. I still love going to the biggest mall in the area when the crowds are thickest.

Just a reminder, the bottom line is truly about buying, BUT at least it is for someone else.

Ah, I feel better now.

I have been expertly brainwashed, conditioned, tweaked and prodded. Pray for me.