Ok so with christmas coming up I thought I'd opena discussion about Christmas Spirit as I really don't have much of one myself and I am sure there are other members who feel the same. I hate celebrating christmas to be honest, but I do so for the sake of my kids. They are young and have the right to enjoy the day so I do it for them. But I really have no christmas spirit at all. I think the whole Christmas idea and all that was lost in the commercialisation of it all. When I was younger you could smell christmas coming with the scent of pine trees, people would walk along singing carols and it was a really exciting time. These days you just see people rushing about to buy everyone the best present they can and the most expensive present they can. I just don't see the point in it all anymore.
I agree completely Torana. The sense of Christmas has been hijacked by corporations (Damn them!) and turne dinto a commercial scheme. I still celebrate Christmas as the day to remeber Jesus was born, but I also love the christmas spirit (Giving namely). Plus its a fun day of family togetherness and joy (And the third best meal of the year after Easter and Thanksgiving). It does saden me that the true spirit(s) of Christmans have been lost. Its especially rediculous that you can't walk into a store and hear "Merry Chirstmas." I say Happy Hanukka to my Jewish friends why can't I hear Merry Christmas when I walk into Walmart?
I am not spending Christmas with my family. Just me and my kids and a friend this year. My family is fairly big on having a huge family get together and all that, but they always fight and argue and it has been that way since I was 6 so I've had no christmas spirit since then and hated celebrating it since then as well. Hopefully this year I won't have that seeing as though we aren't spending it with them.
Hope it will get better for you though. Me? I'm goign with my parents, my boyfriend and his parents to Salmon beach. Probably. Having apicnic lunch of meats and salad and maybe some fishing. I'm planning on shoving my boyfriend into the water. MWAHAHHAHAHHAA! But yeah, should be good. I hope. If the weather is bad it's a roast lunch or a BBQ lunch. With drinks and stuff. Should be cool either way. Although I do miss being a kid and getting excited over the idea of christmas! My mum used to decorate the loungeroom with all these handmade stars or decorations on the roof, crepe paper streamers in green, red and white with a Merry christmas sign. The fireplace (not a giant brick one) had the chimney flue covered in tinsel, more crepe paper adn on top of the fireplace we always had a giant bowel of lollies. I used to love it! The christmas tree was always decorated and presents under the tree, when I was little I used to wrap empty boxes with wrapping paper to make it look like we had more. And mum and dad would pretyt much always give my brother and I a teddy bear of some sort, sometimes very big and a big present. One year it was a trampoline, another it was two big wooden toyboxes and we both got bar fridges at one stage so even though my mum and dad didn't have an extreme amount of money, they both did as much as they could for us kids. My mum taught me a trick to do with kids and presents. Wrap everything individually because it looks like you get tons when if you wrap everything together you basically get two or three presents. So that's what I'm goign to end up doing. I wish I had kids now.
One christmas my grandfather gave my uncle this massive present. The box was big enough for two wide screen TV's. My uncle gets all excited and tears off the paper. Under the paper is a brown box. he opens the box and finds another box, then another box, and another box, and another box, until he finally gets his gift. It was a CD.
LMAO! HAAHAHHAHHAHA. That's the thing with small gifts like CD's and DVD's. People know what they are. Same with gift vouchers. I like giving gift vouchers because then they can't bitch and moan that we didn't get them what they wanted or it was the wrong product or something, so I like to have somethign to wrap that wont be obvious. I'm giving my mum a gift voucher and I'm going to go the craft shop, get a box, paint it and make it pretty then put the card inside.
Yeah I laughed my butt off! By the way evizaer, well said. Its jsut so hard to be giving all the time...
That is an awesome idea. In fact thats such a good idea I have to steal it and use it at some point. My Christmas spirit is on the back burner. My family is a continent and an ocean away, so I can't spend it with them. And all of my friends here know about Christmas and like the idea, but don't really care. So why bother getting giddy over it. I'll just relax and enjoy myself.
I have done the same thing before, except it was a pair of earings in a fridge box it was hilarious to see the look on the poor girls face though. hehehhehe
One thing I dispise about christmas is so many people use it as an excuse to get drunk. I don't see the point in that really.
What that it is just because Christmas is on a monday like you said to me on msn lol Nah it isn't that DOZ, it is just that is all my family does. Gets drunk and argues and they do that all the time. Why can't they just leave it be for one day of the year and make it a day to remember for the next year. Sorry christmas time always makes me a little negative.
I am sort of the opposite of most people. I hated christmas as a child. My father spoiled them all by being who he was. Alcoholic, verbal abuser. It always started out well but deteriorated quickly. He was like that to the day he died so I was glad 20 years ago when they started going to Florida and I only had to talk to family on the phone. BUT now I love christmas. I have since my first son was born and it doubled when Dom came along. Christmas is not about gifts, religion, commercialism, or any of that crap. Christmas is about the feeling the spirit. Up until Political Correctness makes it an offence to wish someone Merry Christmas for the two weeks before christmas you saw a stranger on the street you smiled and wished them Merry Christmas. They smiled back and you could hear them wishing the next person merry christmas. Good feelings were passed on and on. Children were being good because of Santa and nobody asked you why your child at 6 was still being lied to. Children even older ones could pretend that santa was real without ridicule. We listen to the carols, we take a drive around the town to see the lights, and we have a tree in the living room. I love to see the expressions on faces when they open a gift. A coffee mate can full of a book. Or the cracker box with cd's in it. The gift wrapping that looks like a monkey helped instead of the fancy gift wrapping done at the store. It is not the look of the gift it is not even the gift itself. It is the love that went into getting that perfect gift. So remember the spirit the feeling. forget the commercialism and political correctness. go to the mall and enjoy the music of the season. smile at a stranger, and say to heck with PC and wish everyone a merry or happy christmas. they may just be waiting for it so they can start saying it as well. Merry Christmas everyone.
Ahh well DOZ said it was on a Monday lol and lessa after reading that post it reminded me so much of christmas all those years ago. I decided to try and get into the christmas spirit this year and I donated $200 to a charity that goes and buys toys for children at christmas who would otherwise go without. I also donated a massive hamper as well. Made me feel more in the spirit that is for sure.
This year my wife and I did Black Friday (day after Thanksgiving in U.S. where stores open around 4-5 a.m. and run huge savings). I found it to kick start my Christmas Spirit this year. Also my mother was up from Florida for Thanksgiving and we did Christmas with her, which also contributed to my spirit. For those of you that celebrate Christmas, I wish you a very merry Christmas. For those of you that don't celebrate Christmas, I wish you a very merry day. Lordofhats - Last year Wal-Mart started saying Merry Christmas because the year before they took a beating from religious groups who boycotted them for wanting to run Christmas sales and not use the word Christmas. Now their circulars say Christmas Specials and the cashiers say Merry Christmas upon checkout.
I hope we don't lose our traditions because of political correctness or other people that have other faiths. We used to have Santa go around to the schools and into the classrooms. It used to be fun until they stopped doing it because someone complained. But that is another bag of worms!
Still being fairly young, I must admit I do enjoy it, simply because it's a special day and we always do something nice and I love giving and receiving gifts The fun has gone out of it since I've gotten older, but I still do enjoy waking up on Christmas morning and opening presents with my mum. We usually have a great day, eating too much and not worrying about anything too serious. I agree that Christmas has become far too commercialised, though. It's really just used as an excuse for big corporations to make as much money as possible. Still, kids love it and it is a great day for most people
The only thing I'm not liking about this christmas is having to buy presents for my boyfriends cousins. I tell ya what though, it's probably going to be the last time I buy them individual christmas presents. Just ahamper in the future I think. And I keep getting the feeling that they want heaps of money spent on their presents but I htink I might of made it clear mentioning the fact that we could barely afford anything this year! LOL
Christmas is definetly about waking up early and then getting the adults up. One christmas my brother in law who was in the military lived in an apt. in our building and foolishly told my two to call him when they got up in the morning since he was never in Canada for christmas. So they woke up at 4 and ran for the phone. I managed to keep them from calling until about 5:30 they shouted Merry Christmas come on up. I took the phone and all I said was coffee is ready. He made it up in 10 min. but it was a long day for him until he went home at 2 and had a nap. Being a bachelor he had stayed up until 4am. Fun christmas though. That year was all for the children.
