The New War on Christmas

[Cognitive Gear]

All I'm really trying to say is that it is perfectly fine to have both the fall and the Christmas season overlap. And by Christmas season, I don't mean anything that has to do with merchandise, but that cheerful season of "peace on earth and goodwill towards men" we experience as the day of Jesus' birthday celebration draws near.

I'd be more than fine with this. If it were up to me, people would be in a cheerful season of "peace on earth and goodwill towards men" every day of the year.

[Okami]

It does make me sad to see Christmas coming around so early. Mostly because in the mad Christmas rush, Thanksgiving gets pushed aside, and consequently, so does my birthday. =/

[rocklobster]

I don't play my holiday music until Black Friday. I do put holiday music on my fb page, but that also waits until I come back from Thanksgiving celebrations. (Which this year won't be til the Sunday after Thanksgiving. That means I'm waiting til November 28th this year.)
Personally, I think Black Friday will be pretty mild this year, what with the rotten economy these days. But then, I stay away from the stores on that day, so I don't really know what I'm talking about.
Back to topic. I personally don't like the way the stores speed things up holiday-wise. Especially since some stores don't even even want to acknowledge Christ's birthday. We could get into a debate about whether the holiday should be celebrated at all, but I don't think that would be a good idea to do here, maybe on another thread altogether. I also don't like the fact that most holiday movies tend to focus on the secular part of Christmas. You see Santa Claus more often in Christmas movies than you do Jesus. In fact, I can think of only maybe three movies I've seen that even focus on him and only a handful that even mention him. (Even my favorite Christmas movie It's a Wonderful Life is still slightly secular, despite its heartwarming message. And it actually has God and Jesus in it, sort of) It's no wonder the Nostalgia Critic came up with that Santa Christ character. He's the perfect example of what the holiday has become. Santa is, to paraphrase the Beatles, more popular than Jesus. And that's really sad. I mean, no disrespect to St. Nicholas, he was a great man (and if you want to see why he's a saint, click here. But I'm sure even he would rather you give it all to God, not him.

[TWWK]

Just a few notes...

1. My personal opinion, for however little it's worth, is that Christmas is what we make of it. I get angry when I see how commercialized Christmas is, and my wife crusades about it. But Christ cares about our hearts, and it's up to each person to use this season as a time to strengthen our relationships with Christ, or to succumb to a feeling that is more associated with consumerism than relationship.

2. I think it's a wonderful idea to remember those around the world who are suffering during this time. Our family always participates in Operation Christmas Child, where gifts are given, along with the Gospel message, to children around the world. We also frequently do work with Voice of the Martyr, which supports persecuted Christians globally. Their newsletter helps me focus on what's important, even if I only think of these things temporarily.

[Peanut]

I'm looking at caring as an emotion, not necessarily an action. I think that it is important to make the distinction between "caring" and "loving". Most people care about those that are less fortunate. Few love those that are less fortunate. I think that this is key to the transformative power that love has, actually.

I disagree and the reason I disagree is that the distinction I'm making is flipped from what you are making and the reason I am making this distinction is because I've seen many people talk about loving others and yet still pass by the wounded traveler on the road to Jericho. In fact, I'd be willing to say that everyone is guilty of this. But yes, we're all still transformed by love and as long as we don't have knowledge of people hurting around us we can keep on thinking this way and not worry about hypocrisy.

I do pray about these types of things. Certainly not daily, but monthly. To be entirely honest, I don't know if it really does any good, but I pray in faith that it will. I'm in the sad position that the very least I can do is also the very best I can do.

Why not daily? Honestly, I think the least we can do is pray daily for things like this. If we do love or care about these people, then doesn't it make sense that we would set aside time for them. We can do more then prayer but I think if we aren't at the very least praying daily about these things that we probably aren't really moved by them at all.

This is true, but generally I think that the large scale problems, like world hunger, can only be solved through scientific or economic advances that I am not qualified to work towards. The best I can do is to pray, and to support the teaching of these things to anyone who is willing and able.

I think we already have the answer to a lot of these problems like world hunger we just don't want to "waste" the resources on solving them. If the Church took a somewhat unified stand on these things, I don't think things like this would persist in this world. Obviously, the problem is getting the Church to stand together against something and a widespread acceptance of this attitude is why.

[Momo-P]

In regards to the "why are they putting Christmas stuff out so early?!" issue, I'm gonna say what my boss says when people complain to us about this.

"If you guys didn't buy it, they wouldn't put it out."

Many people don't like Christmas stuff being put out early, but then they still turn around and buy from it. All this does is cause the companies to realize "hey, they're buying in October, so make sure it's put out by then!" If they know it works, they'll run with it. ._.

Another thing to consider, some of this may not be the stores, it may just be you.

Every year our Christmas stuff has been coming in the same time as always, yet our customers always insist "It just gets earlier every year!" The thing is though, we have the books to prove it's not. Instead, I think it's just a case of forgetting. The first post mentions Disney for example, but I know for a fact that it's not any earlier than usual. Their small world ride gets a Christmas makeover in early November and this has been going on since 1997. Hardly a case of "earlier and earlier every year" ^^;;;;...

That said, I'm not gonna say SOME places might not be getting a bit insane with it all, but for the majority of them...eh. They all seem to be right on schedule.

[LadyRushia]

I've always had a soft spot for Christmas because my birthday's on the 20th. I like the decorations, the lights, the music, the cute TV shows, but I don't really get stoked about those things until after Thanksgiving. Even though some people will just conflate my birthday with Christmas, I like making my house look a bit cozier with decorations and the feeling that people actually want to treat each other a bit better. I don't really have a problem with the secularization of Christmas because I can easily ignore it. The one thing I really hate is the idea that you have to buy something for someone or else that means you don't love them. That's just stupid and it makes personalized gifts seem like a cop-out.

[ShiroiHikari]

A friend of mine was recently telling me that her husband's family does not like personalized gifts and also didn't like the idea of drawing names out of a hat for gift-giving either, so she's going to have to spend a bunch of money they don't have to buy every single adult something.

If it were me, I'd be saying "too bad, so sad". While I love my family and friends, I don't love credit card debt. I did the whole "run up the credit card balance with Christmas gifts" thing last year, and it's still not paid off completely, so this year it is not happening. This year, everyone is getting decorated sugar cookies and a card. If I could, I'd make everyone's Christmas dreams come true, but I'm not a millionaire, so they will get cookies and LIKE THEM RAAAGHH

[ich1990]

"The enemy of my enemy is my enemy's enemy. No more. No less."

But Stalin was our friend...... Stuff like that, implying he was second rate, well, it could hurt feelings.

[Furen]

Repeating what Mo said, as soon as Dec 26 comes around it's pretty much all gone instantly.

[Nate]

Especially since some stores don't even even want to acknowledge Christ's birthday.

It's called "We don't want to marginalize atheists, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, or people of any other religion." I mean how do you think a Jew would feel walking into a store proudly proclaiming the birth of Christ?

It's uncaring and rude to get offended over something that doesn't matter, without realizing that the things you want to happen would offend others.

It's no wonder the Nostalgia Critic came up with that Santa Christ character. He's the perfect example of what the holiday has become.

...completely awesome?

Now again you can get into the whole thing about "Should non-Christians celebrate Christmas?" But that's I think a pointless debate. Christmas is, at least in the US, a secular holiday as well as a religious one, and I don't think that's going to change anytime soon, at least not as long as Christmas is recognized as a federal holiday.

So the thing to take away is, since it is a holiday that can be celebrated by people who are not Christian, and it has a non-religious aspect to it, we as Christians should not get upset when people celebrate that non-religious aspect to it.

In fact know what? How do you think pagans feel? This was their holiday. It was Yuletide. Yuletide was their religious feast and guess what? It got taken over, replaced of its meaning by Christmas. How do you think pagans feel? We did the same thing to their holiday that you're complaining people are doing to ours. Did you ever stop and think about how mad pagans are that we've taken their holiday that had religious significance and turned it into a celebration of a God that they think doesn't exist?

Okay, I'm actually mad now because of the blatant hypocrisy of Christians regarding Yuletide at this point, so I'm going to stop this post before I say something I shouldn't out of anger.

[Tsukuyomi]

For some reason, I astill do double takes when I see and hear a Christmas esque commercial on TV and the radio o.o

[Cognitive Gear]

I disagree and the reason I disagree is that the distinction I'm making is flipped from what you are making and the reason I am making this distinction is because I've seen many people talk about loving others and yet still pass by the wounded traveler on the road to Jericho. In fact, I'd be willing to say that everyone is guilty of this. But yes, we're all still transformed by love and as long as we don't have knowledge of people hurting around us we can keep on thinking this way and not worry about hypocrisy.

Eh, language semantics. I see love as an action because that tends to be the usage of the word in the translations I read.

Why not daily? Honestly, I think the least we can do is pray daily for things like this. If we do love or care about these people, then doesn't it make sense that we would set aside time for them. We can do more then prayer but I think if we aren't at the very least praying daily about these things that we probably aren't really moved by them at all.

Because like most people, I'm not perfect. I do my best, but again, it's not perfection, and it won't ever be. Not being perfect doesn't mean that we aren't moved by the suffering of others, it just means that we are human.

I think we already have the answer to a lot of these problems like world hunger we just don't want to "waste" the resources on solving them. If the Church took a somewhat unified stand on these things, I don't think things like this would persist in this world. Obviously, the problem is getting the Church to stand together against something and a widespread acceptance of this attitude is why.

I am not familiar with any known viable strategies for ending world hunger. Regardless, it is clear that you have very strong feelings about this particular attitude. That's great, but I don't agree that one attitude is single-handedly responsible for the current state of the Church. We have a whole lot of problems to address.

But that's a discussion that is far and away from the topic of this thread, and probably one that would not be able to be had here.

2. I think it's a wonderful idea to remember those around the world who are suffering during this time. Our family always participates in Operation Christmas Child, where gifts are given, along with the Gospel message, to children around the world. We also frequently do work with Voice of the Martyr, which supports persecuted Christians globally. Their newsletter helps me focus on what's important, even if I only think of these things temporarily.

And this is the best thing about the holiday season. It's one of the rare times that everyone works together to do some good, and it brings attention to those less fortunate.

[Shao Feng-Li]

I don't celebrate Christmas anyway, but working in retail makes me loathe it on a different scale altogether. I'm all for it being only in December XD But, Christmas brings in 50% of a stores profit and want a bonus, so I'll endure.

[Peanut]

Because like most people, I'm not perfect. I do my best, but again, it's not perfection, and it won't ever be. Not being perfect doesn't mean that we aren't moved by the suffering of others, it just means that we are human.

I'm going to be blunt here, that's a lousy excuse not to pray every day for something which you claim to be moved by compassion about. You don't have to be perfect to say a 2 minute or even a 2 second prayer about something each day, you just have to be disciplined. I'm no better but still, I'd never use my fallen state as a human as a reason for why I don't do something like this.

I am not familiar with any known viable strategies for ending world hunger.

If I hinted or said that the solution was viable, I did not mean that in anyway. I think everyone can agree that, simply, the solution to world hunger is getting resources (namely food) to people (or a majority of people) who need it. Obviously there are a lot of barriers that prevent this from happening but I still thing these barriers could be overcome by enough people working with the goal to see it happen.

Regardless, it is clear that you have very strong feelings about this particular attitude. That's great, but I don't agree that one attitude is single-handedly responsible for the current state of the Church. We have a whole lot of problems to address.

But that's a discussion that is far and away from the topic of this thread, and probably one that would not be able to be had here.

I think you've taken what I've written a little to far, though in hindsight, I'm not sure I thought out what I said entirely too well. Still, I wasn't trying to say that this one attitude is responsible for the state of the Church, I was trying to say that a lack of (and pardon my change in terminology here) love for those around us is why we don't do anything. With this being said, as I re-read what I've written, I don't think it is the sole problem however I do think it is one of if not the main problem. Division could easily be overcome if we still, truly loved our brother's and sisters. Either way, I've rambled on long enough about things that, while being interesting and important, aren't related to this thread at all. So, I'll stop here.

[Cognitive Gear]

I'm going to be blunt here, that's a lousy excuse not to pray every day for something which you claim to be moved by compassion about. You don't have to be perfect to say a 2 minute or even a 2 second prayer about something each day, you just have to be disciplined. I'm no better but still, I'd never use my fallen state as a human as a reason for why I don't do something like this.

That wasn't meant to be an excuse, but rather an acknowledgement of my failings.

[ShiroiHikari]

So if it's so important to you, don't you think you could be out doing something about it right now, or praying about it, instead of posting on this thread about it? Aren't you doing the same thing you accused the rest of us of doing?

[Radical Dreamer]

I'm no better but still, I'd never use my fallen state as a human as a reason for why I don't do something like this.

I'm just going to pop in right here and say that while there are a lot of things I could say here, for the sake of not derailing this thread any further, I'm just going to ask that you drop this subject and think about how you sound when you say what you do.

[Yamamaya]

Thanksgiving isn't all that popular with the Native Americans from what I know.

Christmas gets a ton of hype, being the holiday where companies can go crazy and make tons of cash. Just the way capitalism works boys and girls.

Thank you Shiroi. Posting comments regarding the nerve of us talking about something silly instead of something serious like poverty doesn't solve anything.

[Peanut]

That wasn't meant to be an excuse, but rather an acknowledgement of my failings.

Ok, my bad. I read it differently then how you meant. In which case, I retract what I said.

[Dante]

I actually had a panic attack in Walmart a little while back. My mind attempted to process EVERY logo, sound and bright flashy sign in the store at the entry-way... simultaneously. I do believe I was half an instant from ramming the shelves and knocking everything on the floor in a fit of absolute logo-beeping noise-bright colored - sound system commercial induced insanity (And I'm 300 pounds, so I think they'd need a tranquilizer to stop me once I hit 15 m.p.h. ). This could have proven really interesting if I were to reach the wall of about 20 big screen televisions blasting images simultaneously at you the moment you walk it the store. The entire store begs for some poor sap to go off the wall from over-exposure to sensory input.

Honestly though, you're right that stores continue to push Christmas further and further towards the 90 degree temperature portion of the year (unless you're down under, in which case you're already there). But ultimately, the best ways to avoid being miserable from involuntarily advertee syndrome is to is to shut off the TV and cancel the news-paper (or just avoid them if you can't achieve this). If you consider that you're spending half the time in these subjects defending against sales pitches, you start to realize just what an absolutely bad deal the whole thing is to begin with.

When you go to the store? Wear a set of head-phones (I did this quite often in Flag). It shuts off their sound system advertisements and allows you to use the male philosophy of shopping. Get n' go. You can also choose to start shopping at stores that don't jam products down your throat (some are worse then others - really). Other then this? Just cut Christmas down as much as possible. The idea that you're bad because because you don't exchange gifts is just a nasty rumor started by the bourgeois anyways. Instead, I recommend making up with old enemies by sending them a fruit cake instead

[Rusty Claymore]

That's an awsome way to deal with it Pascal. Unless of course you're one of the suckers who has to work in one of those Christmas-stretching retail stores... XD
As each day goes by I get an increasing amount of oppertunities to say, "I don't know, I just work here."

[Shao Feng-Li]

Frik, don't do it in my store. I'll have to clean it up and you'll get a police escort out. I hope

[samurai10]

My mom said, (she grew up in the Philippines) that in the Philippines, Christmas songs and things start in September. Now THAT'S really early! But nobody cares, in fact, they rather like it. Probably because they don't have Thanksgiving. XP But yeah.

To tell you the truth, i really don't care. XD i'm involved with a choir that performs concerts near the 25th, so they have Christmas songs, and I'm already singing them in september. so really, i don't care. XD

but i do think that it's sad that Thanksgiving is getting pushed over by Christmas. Thanksgiving was made by the founding fathers of America. It's important to Americans, and the fact that Christmas is a bigger Holiday than Thanksgiving is sad.

[ShiroiHikari]

Well, to be fair, many people probably think celebrating the birth of Christ is a tad more important than an "official" day of thanks. Of course, you can also look at it the other way and say that more people probably like opening presents more than eating food. This is going to sound like evil materialism, but you can eat food on any day. Presents usually only come twice a year: on your birthday, and on Christmas.

[mechana2015]

Lets just say that I'm very glad that the store I work at hasn't switched (as of this moment) to holiday music.

[Radical Dreamer]

Lets just say that I'm very glad that the store I work at hasn't switched (as of this moment) to holiday music.

Mine has. XD You have no idea how much I wanted to pull my hair out over the two days I worked this Thanksgiving break. XD

[mechana2015]

Mine has. XD You have no idea how much I wanted to pull my hair out over the two days I worked this Thanksgiving break. XD

Ugh. Yeah I'm going to be using my pandora account all this week preemptively so I don't have to hear the 10 versions of 'I saw mommie kissing santa claus' by Jessica Simpson, whenever the do switch it.

[ShiroiHikari]

When Christmas music is good, it's very good. But when it is bad, it is horrid.

[Atria35]

Thanksgiving was made by the founding fathers of America.

Well, this isn't quite true. It was first celebrated by the pilgrims, but faded out for over a century before a lady petitioned Lincoln to make it an official holiday. The date is random- he did the Civil-War-era version of picking it out of a hat.