Official - Holiday rant - thread.

Ok so this time of year always bugs me. Here it is, pre Halloween and some stores already have Christmas stuff out on display. Every year it gets worse too. Retailers USED to put xmas stuff out the day after Thanksgiving and have a big sale but no more. Now everyone tries harder and harder to beat out the next guy and get his (or her) product to the shelves first.

Personally I'm disgusted with it all. I am doing Halloween since I have a little one but I'm even altering my methods there. We'll go trick or treating on our block since we know our neighbors but then I plan to employ a switcheroo. A trade, candy for a desired toy or their choice. What kid really needs that much sugar anyway?

Thanksgiving is becoming the holiday of choice around here. For me it represents what the season was meant to be about, family. We will do our best to lure them here, eat a nice meal and enjoy time together.

AFTER THanksgiving and after only I will put up minimal lights on the house. Probably the second week of Dec the realistic artificial tree goes up. I just dont get killing a tree, dragging it into your house and making it pretty while you watch it die (go ahead, call me a tree hugging Californian).

Each year we get more minimalistic gift wise. I am also a huge proponent of the gift list. No one wants yet another bath gift basket. There is already at least five under the bathroom sink or in the hall closet. If you're going to get someone something "its the thought that counts" means to be thoughtful about what you give NOT that you thought to get them anything.

We also get something to donate, usually to Toys for Tots or a like organization.

Decorations come down the weekend after New Years celebrations around here too. Just say no to Christmas lights in June. They arent that hard to take down. TAKE EM DOWN.

New Years we either do a party at a family members house (and spend the night) or stay home. Don't start your New Year driving drunk. Take a cab, BART, the bus. Spend the night or stay home. Too many non thinkers out there. Oh yea and remember that what goes up must come down. Don't be a knucklehead and shoot firearms into the air. If you do you just might kill someone.

So now my own rant turned into a public service message LOL.

DISCLAIMER this post was not checked for typos, spelling or grammar.

Post your Holiday rant here.

I must admit I share some of your feelings there MJ.

I am partner-less and child-less (no, hold that symathy peeple), although I do have six god-children (I just hope all 3 sets of parents don't go on a cheap holiday flight together one day lol) so in a sense I have kids... I just get to give them back at the end of the day lmao. Birthdays and the odd Christmas with them is so much fun, and it's great doing stuff for their benefit.

But - yes, the commercialisation of holidays gets to me alot. But as MJ says, there are ways to sort it out to greater or lesser degrees.

Birthdays / Christmas:
I tend to make my own b'day and xmas cards, and sometimes the gifts too. Very handy being artistic at these times of the year. Cheaper too if youre on a budget.
My brother's 40th birthday present for example, is a shoestring hitch-hiking holiday to Amsterdam. He absolutely loves the idea, and has totaly forgotten that I said I'd get him a new PC previously

And to echo MJ's rant about xmas lights - yeah, don't leave them up too long! There's a guy down my street who has his house decked out with xmas lights all year round - he gets the piss taken out of him soooooooo much! Nice bloke though. God knows what his electricity bill is like!

Halloween:
Heh... not doing anything this year, as last years 'take back halloween' idea went quite awry...
A bunch of us decided halloween had gotten far too commercialised. It used to be about scary things, and I'm sure the Halloween's of old were all about shutting yourself in your house until the saftey of dawn comes along, not buying the latest pair of light-up plastic devils horns...
So, we decided to get 'real' with halloween last year, dressed up as scary as we possibly could (I had a film-student friend make me up to look like an RTA victim, complete with hanging-out eyeball!). We went around town jumping out at people and generally trying to scare the hell out of them and shouting 'scary halloween'... no candy, just terror.
Eventually, after many people must have complained, we got arrested by the police. They kindly dropped the charges as they realised it was all in jest, but we were warned not to do it again next year. I also got given a phone number for the people that arrange the ambulance training excercises!

I guess what I'm trying to say is, holidays are not all about spending money... it's about fun and good times with family and friends. Yeah, the kiddies want the latest toys, but beyond that, put fun first, and your wallet second!

As someone who grew up non-Christian, the whole holiday thing was a very big deal for us. We didn't have Christmas until I was three, and then only under duress. Why did we have Christmas? Because my father had been teaching me Aristotilian logic - you know, if A=B and B=C, A=C. Each night at dinner I was to come up with another example. One night, after having been read a Christmas story at nursery school, this was my example: Santa Not Coming to Your House = You Are Bad. Santa Not Coming to Your House = You Are Jewish. You Are Jewish = You Are Bad.

So, my Jewish parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins all gave in, because I couldn't be dissuaded, and Santa showed up.

I don't have any children, but if I did I would be raising them Jewish. And I wouldn't be celebrating Christmas, OR teaching them Aristotilian Logic! At least, not until they were old enough to understand the idea of a falacious precept!

Bhodi

ok so here's something to think about. Isnt telling your kids about Santa lying to them? Same with the Easter Bunny and the tooth fairy. So, where do you draw the line? Do you tell them these things in the spirit of childhood fancy? Are you bad if you dont tell them? We didnt push the Santa thing but we haven't witheld either.

I want a relationship of honesty and trust with my kid but on these issues it gets real cloudy. I want my kid to have fun and be a kid but I want them to know they can believe what I say too.

Any parents or would be parents have views to share?

I can tell you why my parents didn't just tell their little Jewish kids that there is no Santa - other kids. And I think they were right. I don't have any painful memories of learning there was no Santa/Tooth Fairy/Compassionate Replubican... but I think I would have painful memories of being the little kid who was shunned for telling everyone else there was no Santa!

I don't see any harm in perpetuating the Santa myth for kids. My parents did with me and it wasn't traumatic when I found out. My sister and I were both doubters all along and my dad had a blast every year messing with our heads and trying to convince us. The boot prints he'd put in the fireplace were always a nice convincing touch. They never wanted us to lose sight of the fact that christmas is about giving so they never gave Santa all the credit. They'd only label a couple of the gifts "from Santa." The Santa myth wouldn't give me pause about sharing xmas with my kids... the christ myth on the other hand

Chip

Yea my parents were similar. I always knew "Santa" was my Mom. She'd stay up all hours to get the stockings filled while everyone else slept. Now I join her when we're all together. I have not deprived my kid but I havent put a lot of emphasis on it either.

The best of Terry Pratchett's Discworld books is (IMO) "Hogfather" which touches on exactly this subject. It probably doesn't make much sense outside the rest of the series, but really, how can you honestly call yourself a nerd if you haven't read Discworld?

The point of it is, parents tell kids these small lies, Santa, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, etc, all these things that don't exist unless we all agree to pretend they do, to prepare them for the big lies, Liberty, Justice, Fairness, etc.

If this is something you hate, write letters, send emails; you'd be surprised how much customer feedback is actually taken into account by retail firms like May and Federated. One of the main reasons department stores put the decoratiojns out early is that a lot of their blockhead customers claim to like the convenience of Christmas shopping in October - that and the fact that they have cut their staffs SO much in order to be competitive with the discount chains that it takes a month just to get all the crap out on the floor. They do that because they feel that most customers are looking for low prices rather than good service. Personally, if I hear any Christmas music before the day after Thanksgiving, I complain to a manager and leave - nobody - especially the poor store employees - should have to listen to that horrid noise for more than a month.

Interesting...

I beg to differ, Darwin. You ARE Christopher Walken!

I really don't get the whole "Christmas in August" thing either. Someone said earlier that it was for the benefit of people who want to get their shopping done early.

Retail chains such as Montgomery Wards have gone out of business, and others like J.C. Penney are on the ropes. Even Toys R Us had to embrace the Internet to survive. It seems to me that with online shopping, you can buy your stuff, and have it shipped without getting off your butt or leaving home. The convenience of the Internet is probably whats killing traditional retail outlets.

Taking this into account, does it really make any difference if you put decorations up in August or in November?

My son knew there was no Santa, no one told him, he just knew. At the age of four he just turned around and told me so. Easy for me.

But you know Saint Nicholas was a real person, a bishop born to a rich family who used his wealth to help the poor. And Christmas is, or once was the celebration of the birth of Jesus. Now that being a whole other thread, but still, where did that go?

And Easter... now didn't that have something to do with Jesus too?

fen-

Interesting that Santa Clause and the Easter Bunny both seem more tangable than Jesus, yet theyre made up too!

And I never did understand the egg thing, since rabbits give birth to live young.

(disclaimer - s'okay, no need to educate me... I'm just being silly)