• Follow us on Twitter @buckeyeplanet and @bp_recruiting, like us on Facebook! Enjoy a post or article, recommend it to others! BP is only as strong as its community, and we only promote by word of mouth, so share away!
  • Consider registering! Fewer and higher quality ads, no emails you don't want, access to all the forums, download game torrents, private messages, polls, Sportsbook, etc. Even if you just want to lurk, there are a lot of good reasons to register!

I HATE Christmas

Jump to latest Follow Reply
Sort by date Sort by votes
bad-santa-2.gif
 
Upvote 0
I'm someone who endures Christmas. Taking any religious significance out of it (which basically our culture has done), it is a pagan season of binge feasting and materialism. In that context, it's best directed toward kids whose magical thinking allows for them to believe in Santa. As an adult, it is meaningless - unless you have some way of focusing on the idea that God loved us enough to send us a savior in the form of a babe, born of a virgin.

I have been married for almost 30 years. My sister married my wife's brother. We had some awesome Christmas times all together, but they divorced after 2 kids and 13 years. My mother and father-in-law got caught up in their son's anger and bitterness, and we really haven't been able to even talk to them for many years. They are extremely angry that they have not been able to draw us into their dysfunction. Every Christmas is another reminder of what we have lost.

On Dec 23, 2010 my soldier son, fresh off a tour in Iraq, married his high school sweetheart in Cozumel, Mexico. We canceled all gifts and spent 10 days in paradise with my daughter-in-law's family. Best Christmas ever. A secular Christmas has its best expression in being with family and loving one another - and we never did that better than we did in Cozumel. My daughter-in-law's father, my dear friend, died 11 months later from complications of a bone marrow transplant at the Cleveland Clinic, making the great time I had with him down there even more precious.

In the end, I have to agree with the originator of the thread. I HATE Christmas too - with one caveat: I hate the lead up to it. Once it comes, I enjoy the fellowship and love we have as a family. I love going to Christmas Eve service at our church, reading the Christmas story, exchanging some gifts, and just being with my wife, daughter, son, and daughter-in-law, along with my parents and other extended family. Next year we will have a grand-daughter with us (should be here in March). Then, it will all be about her - as far as I'm concerned.

So, yes, I hate Christmas - and at the same time I say, Merry Christmas to all.
 
Last edited:
Upvote 0
I not only hate xmas, but thanksgiving as well.
Dysfunctional family... bad food (turkey and ham just aren't my thing) ... annoying tv shows, music, stores closed, etc.
Once upon a time I would house-sit every year for a friend's family who went to the East Coast for the Holidays. I'd just ditch and stay there eating potato chips and being a general slob for a day or two.
My mom once tried to track me down, in her usual hysterics, but I just locked her out... when I went back, she had locked me out... so I just stayed there all week. Suits me fine.
The only good thing about this time of year is Football.
 
Upvote 0
Muck said:
Why must someone believe specific myths for Christmas to have meaning to them? Even your own post goes on to bely the claim.
Click to expand...

I think my point was that there are two tracks the season goes on: one secular and one religious - and that the religious gets swallowed up by the secular - and that one can find meaning in either.

One man's myth is another man's cornerstone of life. Declaring something a myth has a certainty that comes with it that the genuine concept of faith doesn't have. I have faith, based on evidence, but not complete evidence, that Christ was who the Bible says he was. It is evidence beyond reasonable doubt in my mind. However, it is rejectable also by reason. Faith allows for acceptance or rejection, but myth-busting doesn't. It is an intolerant and arrogant place to come from. Unfortunately it is a place that many who claim faith also come, but an intolerance for those who do not believe is mutually exclusive to genuine faith. Clear as mud.

Santa is a myth because the evidence is complete in that direction. But I like the myth for children because they have the ability to think magically. They get a few years where they experience the world in that way. The world is full of tough, ugly realities. If a few myths distract them from those realities for a short time, then that's a good thing.
 
Upvote 0
I can't wait for this to be over. I am so fucking sick of Christmas songs and having to park a mile and a half away from the entrance and waiting in line for, what seems like, days. I thought we were in a recession. Why are people even AT the stores in this number? Don't these people have homes, or at least, somewhere better to be? I really think that this whole fucked up holiday is a self perpetuating hate machine at this point. Christmas is such a stressful pain in the ass, that people would rather trudge through department stores and groceries, simply to ameliorate the in laws, relatives, kids, etc. than to disappoint, or heavens, offend anyone by coming up short on Christmas. They also hate that they are stuck in this logjam of humanity, and they hate themselves for perpetuating it on an annual basis. I had enough this year and said, no more. If you want to use it as an excuse to get together, invite me over to drink your booze or come over to my place to drink mine and remind ourselves why we're involved in each others' lives in the first place, then i'm all for that. Otherwise, this holiday sucks.
 
Upvote 0
OSUK said:
I think my point was that there are two tracks the season goes on: one secular and one religious - and that the religious gets swallowed up by the secular - and that one can find meaning in either.

One man's myth is another man's cornerstone of life. Declaring something a myth has a certainty that comes with it that the genuine concept of faith doesn't have. I have faith, based on evidence, but not complete evidence, that Christ was who the Bible says he was. It is evidence beyond reasonable doubt in my mind. However, it is rejectable also by reason. Faith allows for acceptance or rejection, but myth-busting doesn't. It is an intolerant and arrogant place to come from. Unfortunately it is a place that many who claim faith also come, but an intolerance for those who do not believe is mutually exclusive to genuine faith. Clear as mud.

Santa is a myth because the evidence is complete in that direction. But I like the myth for children because they have the ability to think magically. They get a few years where they experience the world in that way. The world is full of tough, ugly realities. If a few myths distract them from those realities for a short time, then that's a good thing.
Click to expand...

Hey OSUK, here is another way of thinking of the term "myth" (not saying this is what was or was not meant by Muck, but I think it can still help). Myths really aren't falsehoods or "lies breathed through silver", but rather they are stories that are told by communities in order to convey deep-meaning truths that cannot easily be stated by a recitation of facts and theories. In this sense, what you and I believe about Jesus is a myth; however, we also believe that it is a unique myth in that it actually occurred. If you want to go deeper into this type of thinking, you need to read C.S. Lewis, who expresses it best in writing, as well as Tolkien who was the one who originally shared this understanding with Lewis, but unfortunately didn't write too much about the idea.
 
Upvote 0
It was bad enough when the economy was better and old ladies were beating each other with 8 lb purses for things like Cabbage Patch dolls. At least that was about kids, no matter how selfish and materialistic it was. Now it's people spending money they don't have, and never will have, to make sure they have all the newest electronic crap that keeps them virtually disconnected from the shitty reality they live in.

Oh, and it seems to bring out all the asshat drivers who apparently don't drive all year except at Christmas just to annoy the fuck out of me and keep me from getting to work. So yeah, I agree with the above poster who said Christmas Eve/Day is fine and well, but the buildup is shit.
 
Upvote 0
buckeyegrad said:
Hey OSUK, here is another way of thinking of the term "myth" (not saying this is what was or was not meant by Muck, but I think it can still help). Myths really aren't falsehoods or "lies breathed through silver", but rather they are stories that are told by communities in order to convey deep-meaning truths that cannot easily be stated by a recitation of facts and theories. In this sense, what you and I believe about Jesus is a myth; however, we also believe that it is a unique myth in that it actually occurred. If you want to go deeper into this type of thinking, you need to read C.S. Lewis, who expresses it best in writing, as well as Tolkien who was the one who originally shared this understanding with Lewis, but unfortunately didn't write too much about the idea.
Click to expand...

I've read everything Lewis wrote. Brilliant, brilliant man. I get your point. On a forum like this, you have to look at the context and try to get a sense of it. I judged Muck to be myth-busting, not using myth in the sense you described. But if I am wrong, it wouldn't be the first time. :)

This morning I finished up the last item on my list to get ready for the rest of the week. I have leaned toward bah humbug the past few weeks, but I'm feeling kinda fesitive. In a couple of hours Punkin will be home from college, and I am looking forward to spoiling her.
 
Last edited:
Upvote 0
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top