Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Off Topic Bah, humbug! For anyone needing to vent in the run up to Christmas.

...and one more last minute rant.....

my family has a hang up with presents. we're all in our 30s-early 40s. you'd think we'd have figured this out.

gift giving at christmas is supposed to be fun and spontaneous. it shouldn't be a massive list of brothers, sisters, parents, uncles, aunts, cousins, nephews, nieces, god-children, dogs, cats, and fish. if your brother is married with three kids ages 7, 9, and 10, and having christmas at their house with just them, and enjoying it very much, and they are now their own little family unit, you shouldn't feel obliged to get them presents. and if you do, you do it just because "oh, I found the most adorable little christmas dress for little jenny!" or something. Instead, we write out these massive lists---and when one marries, one now has TWO massive lists of people to search out presents for, your own family and your new in-laws---and trudge all over town grumbling and annoying the nice shop people just because somewhere in the back of our bloody supid brains is carved the maxim THOU SHALT GET PRESENTS FOR EVERYONE . this is stupid. get presents for whoever you think to get presents for, whoever you find the perfect gift for, or for whomever you are most closely in tune with the needs of. (? did i say that right? try again....) if there's someone you seem to know 3,000 little presents to get them, then by all means get them! so maybe one year your older sister might not get one, and the next year they might get three. and then for the next four years they might not get anything, and then the next year they get two. whatever. presents are not a MUST, they should not be a grumbling tedium that you force on yourself, because YOU are the only one doing the forcing. they should be spontaneous, joyful, and stress free. we all say (and when I say "we", I mean my family) that the whole point of the season is not presents, its a birthday party for a baby boy, but we really don't seem to put our money where our mouths are on that.

so they're pressing "picking names", putting everyone's names in a hat, drawing names, and get presents for just that person. I see this as artificial and constricting, turning what is supposed to be a small, incidental, spontaneous, and fun thing (the giving of gifts) into an artificial thing. "here's my shopping list, now go get this stuff for me". what if I get so-and-so's name, but when I'm out shopping, I see the perfect gift for such-and-such? they complain that they have too many people to buy for. "well, I still have to get presents for you guys, but now that I'm married, I have to buy presents for his family, too." so what's wrong with that? "well, they buy for all of the aunts and uncles and nephews and nieces as well, and that's too much money!

1. tell the aunts and uncles that they are adults, and they have families of their own, including some grandkids, and presents at christmas are no longer a priority in their lives.

2. Tell the nieces and nephews that the presents are going to be few and far between, if at all, because they have their siblings and their parents, they are a family unit, and they can take care of themselves.

2. too much money? you make close to $150,000 as a couple, with no major debts, and you are living in an area that has a low cost of living! and if you can't afford it, then adjust your budget accordingly. put a $15 or $20 limit on the presents, if you insist on buying for so many!

grrrrr..... I'm sure there's more, but I'm ranted out for the moment. i sez screw the rest of 'em, i'm buyin' my OWN presents for ME.

I'm not into the Christmas thing. I don't even like the way people make kids believe in Santa Clause. Saint Clause use to exisit. He was a simple man on a donkey wanting to make a diffrence in the world.

Some people celebrate Christmas by going to church with the birth of Christ. Christ was born in the middle of summer not winter! Only going to church only on Christmas day is like Lois Lane only wanting to see Clark Kent once a year! or you seeing your husband, one time a year.

Lois lane, 'He knows I never listen.'

Live life like everday is Christmas. Goodwill and love to all.

You make it sound like kids believing in Santa Clause is a bad thing, like it's forced upon them. I think it would be a shame if they weren't allowed to have that little bit of magic in their lives.

Santa Claus is a great way to teach kids about the things you mention, things like goodwill. He's not just about toys and presents.

Does the season really matter? People celebrate the birth of Christ, December 25, not Summer or Winter. And hey, it's the middle of Summer in the Southern Hemisphere at the moment, so half the world got it right...

As for only going to Church on Christmas Day, if that's the only day in the year that people go to church, the only time in the year that they experience enough faith to venture out, then I think that's fine. At least they're experiencing it. They're obviously feeling the spirit of the season, which is a good thing.

I'm not a regular church-goer, but I always make a point of going to church on Christmas Eve or at midnight. It's not that I feel forced to go just because it's Christmas. It's that Christmas brings out a stronger emotion in people, and one of the ways people express this is by going to church.

shhhhh.......





nobody? nope.....


*whispers* ok, here goes. closet roman catholic, carefully peeking out and watching for axes.

I looked up info on this on a catholic dictionary on line, but the history provided is so blitheringly complex, it would be useless to post here. one way I've heard it explained is that it is around the time of the year when the days start to lengthen, and conversely, the feast of john the baptist (in the RC Church, again) is at mid-june, when the days are at their longest and now begin to shrink. this lines up rather sweetly with what john said at one point, "I must decrease and he must increase". but it's not the only reason, to be certain. the day was more or less picked arbitrarily, because a number of pagan festivals of mid-winter were placed there as well. fixing an exact date got too confusing, and people started arguing "shepards wouldn't be keeping their flocks in the fields in the middle of the rainy season!" and "they couldn't do the census in the winter because you couldn't move the population at that time of year!" etc etc. so they just had to pick, and pick they did. and of course the protestant churches still keep this date as well, for the most part. (right?)




ps---aurora, you have the most charming sig i've seen in a long time!

You're right, Sileas, they don't know the exact day - December 25 was just picked as the most accurate guess.

Some interesting info you have there!

Re my sig, I liked the simplicity of it (and I have a thing for shoes... it's an expensive and uncontrollable addiction).

(shhh....i have an expensive....well, maybe not TOO expensive, but an addiction for silk scarves. )

yeah, it's not too precise info, but....really, that site was blitheringly detailed and complex. didn't help that they put the references in the text, instead of as footnotes. :rolleyes: i'm not sure I could "translate it to english" if I tried! but i got the general gist of it. i think....

Did the other 2 posts get deleted or is there something up with my laptop?

The other two posts got deleted There were some offensive comments posted, and a reply about them. We decided we didn't want to let those comments stay, so the post (and the reply) was deleted, and the poster contacted by e-mail.

PJ

Thanks for that. Glad to hear there was nothing wrong on my side (I seem to go through computers like crazy - I must get all the duds).

Glad, too, that the comments were deleted. I read them earlier, and then a few minutes later when I checked back they were gone. Quick work going on here...

Christmas is still a humbug.