Bah Humbug!

I KNOW! The Christmas stuff has popped out everywhere -- I had this exact same reaction when I saw a local store had already gone all-out with Christmas decorations. I mean, complete, total, reindeer and snow and "Merry Christmas" Christmas decorations. I thought this was supposed to wait until the day after THANKSGIVING, not the day after Halloween! Geesh.

last year K & L (the neighbours) were strangley subdued in the decoration department, either too big a hydro bill or K has had enough of spending many hours on the job

Yes, indeed, the merry season is once upon us, poking it's little head a wee bit earlier every year.

Why don't they just get it over with and have it all year round. Then, after a whole year of frigging HO HO HO, we'll be real good and ready for it in December, right?

Bloody humbug!!

Tell me about it. My wife has boxes and BOXES of Christmas crap, er... decor, that I now have to climb up into the garage and bring down, unpack and quite probably help put up!

I hate that...

I noticed my first ad on TV for Christmas stuff tonight. Yuk!

[cringes]

This morning as I was driving to work, on the radio station they mentioned just the same thing. At one particular store, one of the DJs noticed they had a Christmas tree up. So they called the store complaining to the manager. The manager was actually rather rude about it (granted the guy from the radio station was really polite). I think we all should call the stores and complain.

I thought it was just my neighbor. WTF? It isn't even Thanksgiving yet and I see her tree up!!

Rule in my house; nothing Christmas goes up until after Thanksgiving. Ever.

I'm a blase sort of person. I can ignore the World Series and the Super Bowl and Martha Stuart and Christmas in October and any number of other happenings which seem to be important to other people.

The Christmas shopping season in (November to December) is essential to the American economy. "Black Friday", the day after Thanksgiving, is traditionally the day when a store's profit and loss for the year wind up firmly in the black.

My guess is that people who spread their holiday shopping over eight or even twelve weeks are less likely to go into debt than those people who wait for the Christmas Spirit to smite them sometime in mid-December.

On one hand, people sigh, "If only the Christmas Spirit would last all year." On the other hand, people wax indignant about merchants, neighbors, ad men and Uncle Tom Cobleigh and all who start Christmas in October.

I'm not a Christian, but it seems daft to me to nitpick about how other people choose to celebrate a season which is supposed to be about Peace on Earth and general good will.

I don't think it has a lot to do with time (and in that case I suppose, it's here just the other way around) but with a plan about to buy.


And when to stop.

Oh, and Christmas shopping traditionally didn't start here before the first Advent - now we leave Christian traditions behind us as well and get here as well more and more Americanised.

there is one advantage about living in the yuk

sorry uk

...we dont celebrate christmas

because its not pc to upset the muslims

(they might bomb us)

so its Winterval

and festive lights

and a season of being nice to everyone especially non christians

christmas trees? forget it

not right is it?

what about the pagans, after all it was their festival first.

ok end of rant

time for 'christmas shopping' is ALWAYS right AFTER christmas
that's when the real fun starts .
the 'christmas holidays' are strictly for getting fat and lazy - is it called 'gluttony' ?
hbg

btw we have noticed that some stores are starting "after christmas sales" several days BEFORE christmas - now that's what i call smart merchandising .

for many years we used to spend the month of november in myrtle beach/s.c. . they hardly ever saw any snow down there but all stores were decorated for christmas and christmas jingles could be heard right down the main street on november first !
as a local lady said to me at one time as we were sitting on the beach in the sunshine : "we had some snow at christmas one year ; was it ever pretty ". (i think she pronounced it "purdy" :wink: ) .
hbg

Yeah, after-Christmas sales rock.

I was thinking about Noddy's response, as I agree with her but also get annoyed at having Christmas accroutements appear too early. I enjoy the Christmas/ Winter Solstice/ whatever season a lot, but I most definitely wouldn't want it to last all year. The very specialness is part of what is nice. When it's fully 1/6th of the year or more, it loses some of its luster.

That's all separate from buying, though, to me. I always have an eye out for deals or for ideas for things to make for the people I gift. My parents both have birthdays in July, and what I've accumulated since January becomes their birthday presents; what I've accumulated since July becomes their Christmas presents. (I had too many things in the same category for my mom for her birthday this year so one will be a Christmas present -- bought it in March or something. I currently have about half of her presents and have the other half planned [will make].)

I pretty much never do the wander-the-mall-in-search-of-presents thing -- I'll go to see the sights and bring sozlet to whatever seasonal fun stuff is happening, but for me the decorations part is rather divorced from the commerce part.

My annoyance mostly has to do with the fact that I LIKE the twinkly lights and the evergreens and festivity, and prefer it to be fresh through the actual holiday rather than just boring, months-old same ol' same ol' by the time December 25th rolls around.

Oh and one other thing -- I see Christmas decorations as filling a breach, seasonally. (One reason I could never get into Christmas when we lived in L.A....) In November we still have the gorgeous fall colors, there are still leaves on the trees, the grass is still green -- pumpkins and mums and shafts of wheat add plenty enough grandeur to what's already there. It's when the leaves are all gone and the grass is looking sad and everything's gray and cold and drab that the lights and decorations are really needed and appreciated.

I agree, soz. That's why the saddest day of the year, to me, is the day the decorations have to come down. Nothing cheery left to look at for at least three months.

Soz--



Interesting thought. The holiday decorations fill in the gap between fall color and spring bulbs, compensating for nature's dormancy.

Personally I start battling SAD when Daylight Savings time stops and I can't really believe in spring until I see the first snowdrops in early February.

November is the first of the Three Dark Months.

Our Three Dark Months are mid-December to mid-March, Noddy.

January is the worst. The holidays are over, and all you have to look forward to is...February. Arrrrgh.

Eva--

By the second week in January I can notice advancing daylight and February means the first of the spring flowers.

I'll grant you that those 28 days, can be long and dreary days.