Bah humbug!

[kiwidiva]

Does anyone else on this board NOT celebrate Xmas? Or am I the only Scrooge??

[tutusue]

Re: Bah humbug!

Not celebrate...or ignore? I don't really celebrate it and haven't since my kids moved out of the house. No decorations. No cards. No gift giving except to the 4 little guys in my life...my grandsons and nephew. Since it's a day I'm guaranteed not to work I always end up doing something fun with friends. Each year my various clients throw wonderful holiday parties. I love those because it's a time to get together with industry friends and NOT talk shop! So, I don't ignore Christmas but I don't go out of my way to celebrate it, either! I decided after 9/11 to go out of my way to celebrate my friendships.

[Pua'i Mana'o]

Re: Bah humbug!

we party from Veteran's Day through Martin Luther King, meaning every Friday and Saturday is a holiday, as we always have some place to be. 12/25 doesn't stick out as some extra special day to me, but I do honor greatly the holiday season. Time to get together, enjoy family and friends, take stock of everything, wish each other peace and good things, and make peace, too.

However, I do love my midnight mass. I go to the Hawaiian church for 10:30p service, then cross the street and head to the Catholic mass at midnight. I love those celebrations! They remind me that God is too big to fit into our frail human right/wrongness. Where there's prayer, where there's fellowship, there's God.

[sinjin]

Re: Bah humbug!

Not celebrating is not an option. I try to be the best humbuggah I can.

[jdub]

Re: Bah humbug!

Not celebrate? Unthinkable, even without Ma. Especially without Ma.

[Honoruru]

Re: Bah humbug!

I'm kind of from the Bah Humbug School of Christmas. I don't celebrate it so much as try to make my way through it--to survive, in other words.

I do celebrate the family gathering and the giving of gifts to my "kid-age" nephews, and the joy of watching them play with the gifts (or the wrappings), and the Christmas feast.

What I don't like are the office parties and those silly grab bags and games; the way the season starts in October and continues into January; the way you're made to feel guilty if you're not in the holiday spirit; the way you're almost forced to consider who you should gifts to, and how much should you spend; the way you're made to feel that if you are not fully into the Christmas spirit, you are un-American, an atheist, and the reincarnation of Ebenezer Scrooge.

Christmas should be a spiritual thing, a personal thing, a family thing. It's just gotten way out of hand.

[tikiyaki]

Re: Bah humbug!

I'm usually REALLY BAH Humbug, but this year, I've been watching "The Secret" periodically and I decided that, even tho' I'm not religious, I'd get into the holiday Spirit and just try to be a happy guy. I figure, I'll throw the good vibes out into the universe, and it will come back to me. Being negative doesn't really do anyone any good anyway.

So...We bought Santa hats for us and the dogs and took a family photo, and I'm, right now as I write this baking X Mas cookies.

I think I became Bah Humbug after my mom died. and X Mas wasn't the same anymore, but now I'm making the cookies she used to make, and trying to be a little "Christmas-y" just cos' it beats being "Mr Negative", which is my usual X Mas M.O.

So, I'm taking the year off from Bah Humbugging and trying to be "happy" this season.

[scrivener]

Re: Bah humbug!

Christmas is like Disneyland: It's really only great if you're a kid, a parent, or a lover. Being none of the three, you'd think I'd be a humbugger like some of you, but in fact it's sort of the opposite. Not being forced into Christmas mode, I get to decide for myself when I will let it kick in, and I get to decide for myself how I will experience it.

Too commercial? Sure. Too much traffic and too much stress? Yes. I take those (and all the other inconveniences) as an opportunity to ask myself what I want the season to be, and since I am beholden to nobody, I get to make it my reality. A quiet evening alone? My call. Dinner with a friend? Also my call. Sleeping until 10, then shopping until 2, then napping until 5, as I did today? My call.

When it comes to matters of faith, most of my friends agree with me that there's nothing especially spiritually significant about Christmas; we do commemorate it in special ways, but we also celebrate the birth, death, and resurrection pretty much every Sunday in church or any other day when we get together for fellowship, as Pua`i points out. And while the topics of conversation may not be directly spiritual or religious, when I am with my friends of similar faith, there is always, always, always the awareness of a bond that connects us, and that bond is the birth, death, and resurrection.

Christmas for us is just when a lot of other people join in, if only for a few weeks. That feels good. When I was young and stupid, I used to be critical of "Christmas-only" and "Easter-only" churchgoers, but that was when I was young and stupid. Now, I feel real joy in seeing people set aside a couple of moments in order to reflect on something other than the usual list of daily, yearlong concerns.

I can totally understand the anti-sentiment about the office Christmas parties and grab-bag activities, but I've been a teacher for twelve years, and I love my colleagues! I spend most of the day flying solo, locked in my classroom with teenagers. I confess that this suits me, as I like to work alone and I have the interpersonal skills of an awkward thirty-eight-year-old man who never learned to enjoy smalltalk and is self-conscious about just about everything. Faculty meetings are brief and all business, which I also enjoy, but the opportunity to interact casually with these people whose work I respect so much is worth whatever indignity I might suffer at the hands of overly zealous party-planners.

So I say bring it on, and let it last as long as anybody can handle.

[TATTRAT]

Re: Bah humbug!

Personally, it is just another day to me. In my line of work, the holidays simply represent a busy time where I am gonna get my a** kicked, be pulling long hours, feeling like I do not have time to do anything(let alone drag my but to the mall and shop)...

I dunno, if I had kids it would be different, but now, I could go either way on the holidays.

[LikaNui]

Re: Bah humbug!

For those of you who need another reason to celebrate on December 25... it's Jimmy Buffett's birthday!
Have a margarita.

[TATTRAT]

Re: Bah humbug!

Now THERE is an idea I can wrap my head around!

[SusieMisajon]

Re: Bah humbug!

We don't do the shopping and gifting thing. But the kids make each other presents.

[GeckoGeek]

Re: Bah humbug!

and I'm, right now as I write this baking X Mas cookies.

What are they like?

I tend to be Bah humbug until I've figured out what to get everyone and get all the shopping done. I'm more into the Christmas thing when the presents are all wrapped, but by then it's already Christmas - it's over before I'm ready for it to be over.

[oceanpacific]

Re: Bah humbug!

Shopping is "Bah, humbug!" But, even as a curmugeon, I give my kids the "GREEN," so they can get what they want, on their own time. No traffic jams, hunting for parking, long lines, crowds, excessive wrapping, etc. I don't even get an envelope. I just open the wallet on Christmas morning and extract those C-notes. Practical and no bother!

[mel]

Re: Bah humbug!

Does anyone else on this board NOT celebrate Xmas? Or am I the only Scrooge??

This year it got in the way of doing my normal monthly stuff. The shopping part sucks when you need to find parking, decide what to get for someone, etc., etc... and of course doing it at the last minute compounds the problem.

So yes, as my current holiday avatar professes.....

BAH HUMBUG!