It's your mistake to think people are offended when you say Merry Christmas. That's offensive to nobody. It's more inclusive to say Happy Holidays, however, which is why people are moving towards that. It's just considerate as there are millions of people in our country that don't identify as Christian.
I think the carols that bother people are the Christian ones. Jingle Bells and Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer are fine. Christian songs don't really belong in a public school, in my opinion. I wouldn't raise a flap about them being sung by my kids, but I can see why a Jewish parent wouldn't want their kids singing about Jesus.
And it didn't start with Christmas, anyway. This has been a holiday time long before sweet baby Jesus was born.
Happy Holidays is what terrrorists say.
__________________
"A pessimist thinks things can't get any worse. An optimist knows they can."
The Following 4 Users Say Thank You to FlamesAddiction For This Useful Post:
I like the holiday - associate it with end of year celebration and family time. As for commercialism - that is in everyone's self control. As I have gotten older, the concept of giving has increased with me, and I enjoy giving my family gifts.
I like the carols, the food, the TV specials. And this year I will enjoy a Christmas luaua as well.
Not my favorite time of the year. I suspect that would change quickly once I have kids.
I hate shopping for other people. I hate trying to find the right gift. It feels good when I do finally find the right gift, but that does not happen every year and the process to actually find that gift is just not worth it. Its great for the kids. Give the kids gifts and put some food in my belly and be done with it.
I like cutting down the tree. I like driving around and checking out the light displays. And I really enjoy the dinners. I enjoy those things because of the company I keep while doing them. I have just as much fun at a nice family BBQ in the summer as a good old fashioned turkey dinner in the winter. The big boon of xmas time is it actually gets more of the family together. Seems like the other 11 + months of the year everyone is too busy.
The Merry Christmas vs Happy Holidays argument just makes me shake my head. I am not religious and I personally don't care either way. My wife, who is also not religious, hates the term Happy Holidays with a passion. She is a huge Christmas nut, our place has been decorated for over a week now. She is such a catty bitch if someone says Happy Holidays to her, that i've often had to try and calm her down in public. At a guess, I think that she is pretty bitchy about it at work too. No idea why she takes it so personal other then her excuse of , "People are stupid, its Merry Christmas not Happy Holidays". Well she usually drops a few F-bombs when she says her reasoning, lol.
A world without National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation is unimaginable.
Quote:
Uncle Lewis: Hey Grizz, Bethany and I figured out the perfect gift for you. Clark: Aw, you didn't have to get me anything. Uncle Lewis: Dammit, Bethany, he guessed it.
The Following User Says Thank You to Finny61 For This Useful Post:
I like rum and egg nogs and sitting in front of the fire channel (wish I had a fireplace) reading a book. I like listening to the holiday classics in the dark on the drive home or while the wife cooks breakfast on the weekends. I like the lights and appreciate the tastefully decorated houses.
I don't like the abundance of baking and chocolates and food that gets shoved down your throat. I don't like pop star's modern holiday songs. I don't like the obligation to give or receive gifts. I don't like the ######s who break out their mis-matched strings of lights a week into November and have them on all the way through till March.
I hate the stress of trying to squeeze in a dozen different family events into two or three days because heaven forbid we not see some branch of the family each and every holiday season - that would clearly make us horrible, horrible people.
The Following User Says Thank You to PowerPlayoffs06 For This Useful Post:
I just wish we could all get over the anti christmas athiests. If god doesnt exist a nativity scene is merely a cultural symbol to set up right beside Santa. A historical artifact from when people believed in men in the sky. People take the fun out of everything.
Christmas is a great time to visit, decorate, sing, shop. One of the things I did to make it less stressful was to only give gifts if I found something good otherwise nothing. Avoiding obligatory giving makes Christmas better. Give because you want tonot because you should
I'm not going to lie... I love Christmas lights on peoples' houses. Maybe someday I'll get off my ass and participate, but in the meantime, I'm just going to say thank you to the people that deck their houses out (and the more modest ones, too) with lights, and make the drive home and the evenings more colourful. I can't imagine how long and dark and boring December would be without Christmas lights.
The Following 4 Users Say Thank You to 4X4 For This Useful Post:
I just wish we could all get over the anti christmas athiests. If god doesnt exist a nativity scene is merely a cultural symbol to set up right beside Santa. A historical artifact from when people believed in men in the sky. People take the fun out of everything.
I'm not anti-Christmas. I am; however, anti-taxpayer-dollars-funding-religious-expression.
I get depressed around Christmas. I like to see other people enjoy it though.
I think Christmas can be quite nostagic for many, particularly the older folks. I recall one Christmas when our family was opening our presents, my daughter, who at the time was working in an extendicare nursing home, started crying. I asked her what was wrong and she said, "Many of the old people at her workplace were so unhappy".
I'm not anti-Christmas. I am; however, anti-taxpayer-dollars-funding-religious-expression.
Its not funding a religious expression. Its funding a cultural expression no different than Santa Claus. I like how christmas lights also incorporate manorahs as just another symbol of the holidays a long with others. Christmas is such a mishmash of various pagan and current religious beliefs that to protest the nativity likely means scrapping the whole thing. Can the state put up a tree without it being religious? At what point does a symbol become religious and not permitted vs being a pagan relic that everyone can use.
The whole fight limits what can be done and taught. Im sure public schools could do an excellent celebration incorporating many cultures and religions symbols under the large umbrella of Christmas but instead these movements always seek to remove instead of tolerate. And to me it kills the christmas spirit.
Last edited by GGG; 11-26-2012 at 06:38 PM.
The Following User Says Thank You to GGG For This Useful Post:
The loud obnoxious Christmas music blaring down at the core/TD square seemed to get shoppers really enraged today but beyond that Christmas is great when it gets everyone together for the nice family meal that is all that matters to me.
__________________ I am in love with Montana. For other states I have admiration, respect, recognition, even some affection, but with Montana it is love." - John Steinbeck
The Following 6 Users Say Thank You to Displaced Flames fan For This Useful Post:
