a slight rant if I may about Christmas.

[Justice wanted]

I'm not that old. I am in my 30s and I remember when the holiday season entailed not only Christmas eve and day but you still had decorations up and music playing and people still visiting with holiday warm wishes until at least New Years day and sometimes until Jan 6th.

Now at days it is all about marketing as early as possible and than the Day after Christmas take everything down and treated it as business as usual.


Too me it just seems the humanity of the whole entire Christmas/Hanaka (sp?)/ Yule all of it was a celebration of not only the upcoming spring but taking the time to reconnect with one another and reminding ourselves of the good humanity can bring.

I was talking to one of my younger cousins-teenager- who thought the 12 days of Christmas where the 12 days leading up to christmas and not the 12 days after Christmas.

Honestly the way things are done in general I'm surprise we even keep an obsolete holiday.

Really it is such a sad comintary on the United States now at days.

Please, don't mistake me for one of those "War on Christmas" Idiots I just think we have lost the general renewal of the human spirit.

Am I the only one feeling this way or should I get out of the past and just deal with it.

[RandySF]

1. Where would that be?

Everything in San Francisco remains decorated until after New Year's Day? Also, I'm 40-ish and it was just as commercialized then as it is now.

[Justice wanted]

2. Maybe it is my small town around Pittsburgh but it just seems Day after Christmas you see decoration

coming down and no christmas music.

To me it is so rush.

[Curmudgeoness]

3. It gets worse with the years. Just wait.

from one small town around Pittsburgh to another.

[femmocrat]

4. I also hate the commercialization of Christmas.

We barely get to enjoy Thanksgiving. It has turned into the shopping frenzy kick-off, with stores opening on Thurs. night for "Black Friday" this year.

I remember the Christmases of the 1950s and 1960s.... Maybe because we had a lot of family nearby, but there did seem to be more emphasis on families spending time together. We would visit with extended family during the week between Christmas and New Year. Maybe it is still that way for those with relatives living nearby.

I also grew up in a small town outside of Pittsburgh. Western PA is a place where families tend to stay connected, I think.

[dimbear]

5. Reminds me of how the Romans complained about commercializing the New Year.

Midwinter has been a season of excess since the earth's axis first slipped off vertical. Drinking, feasting, presents, parades, switching places with the servants, cross dressing......

[Lionel Mandrake]

6. Once upon a time,

Christmas was a religious holiday (holy day), a Mass for Christ, and it still is for many people.

For others, Christmas morphed into a time for adult revelry and drinking, then into a family-oriented occasion with Saint Nicholas, and, finally, into an occasion to spend money and support the economy. This final transformation involved the corruption of "Saint Nicholas" into "Santa Claus".

To me, it's only a corruption in the linguistic sense. As an atheist, I have no objection to the secular figure of Santa Claus.

According to a popular Christmas carol, Santa Claus is omniscient:

He's making a list,
Checking it twice;
Gonna find out who's naughty or nice.
...
He sees you when you're sleeping
He knows when you're awake
He knows if you've been bad or good
So be good for goodness sake

When I was very young, I would worry each year about whether I had started being good early enough to fool Santa Claus. I never worried like that about God.

[Chan790]

9. "When I was very young, I would worry each year about whether I had started being good early enough"

I remember being 9 or 10, right around the time boys find themselves and worrying about whether Santa saw me touch myself. It ruined Christmas for me because even though I didn't know the word for it yet, voyeurism skeeved me out.

[fishwax]

7. I've noticed a longer buildup to Christmas, but haven't seen it disappearing more quickly afterwards

It seems to me that Christmas decorations, displays, and after-Christmas sales still keep the season going until New Years ...

[Silver Swan]

8. The Hallmark Channel

keeps showing Christmas movies through December 31!

But I agree. I actually love the whole holiday season: the music, the decorations, the celebrations. I never want to cut it short.

I could go on about how magazines in the 1950's-1980's went all out for the December issues, but now they are just ho-hum.

[applegrove]

10. I have always wanted the tree to stay up as long as possible. I love all the rituals of the

holidays. What I miss the most right now is that there will be no kids for christmas this year. Seeing them so happy was so much fun.