merry measure

[maestro23]

As I write this it is now (for the next couple hours, anyway) ten days until Christmas, and a week until Solstice. I've just about reconciled, though, that those two words mean pretty much the same thing to me.

I am not and never have been a Christian, except maybe in the vague fluffy Unitarian sense of "what Jesus said was so nice, who cares if he

Comments

[aiglet]

gdmusumeci really hates Christmas in all its forms, and is exceedingly irritated every year at Thanksgiving when I break out the Christmas carols and start muttering about trees and moving furniture and big parties...

I think that's because he only sees two Christmases -- religious and commercial. I see three -- religious, commercial, and secular. I don't really celebrate either the religious or commercial Christmases (I go to church on Christmas eve, but I shamelessly admit that it's because I like the singing and I find the ritual comforting), but I adore secular Christmas and all its trappings. There really is no bad in having a set of midwinter traditions, and if they happen to have trappings that are easy to come by (like trees and lights and food and friends), so much the better!

Now all I have to do is convince him that our tree is "abundant," and not "tackily overdecorated." I think it stuns him that I still have about a box of ornaments.

[maestro23]

Finding the ritual comforting is as perfectly good a reason as any to participate in religion. Making a space in our lives to play dress-up and speak in poetry is one of those weird things we big naked lemurs do. Which I suppose is one of the things I was getting at in all my thrashing around up there.

I have some sympathy for the distaste for the commercialization of the holidays, although honestly I find harcore anti-commercialism in some ways just as silly (especially since my brand of "consumerism" involves mostly books and music, and I've never understood why it's bad for me to help creative people to make a living) - and, hey, I'm not going to lie and say I don't like getting presents. And giving them as well, while we're at it. At its best, it's a fine excuse for people to be generous with each other, and I mostly can't bring myself to get too bent out of shape about that.

(Also? "Tackily overdecorated" is the point. And I'd be right there with you, too, with my two hefty Rubbermaid tubs' worth of shiny bulbs, if not for the

[darknyt4]

I agree that the Neo-con paranoia about Christmas does sound like Bizzaro World. "Me Am Bill O'Reilly. Me am Bizzaro #1. Us hate Constitution. Us am Fascists. Us Start War for Best Reason of all. Becuase US Want To." Sorry, I didn't mean to digress, (MUCH).

The subject was Christimas. I think that it is something that is personal to each one of us and we find away to celebrate it in our own way that menas the most to us and brings us the "joy" of theseason (for lack of a better phrase.)

[maestro23]

I haven't been paying attention to O'Rlly, because Jesus Christ, life is short, but I noticed that weird "recognizing Christmas and Christianity" resolution that got passed last week. Obviously we've run out of real problems to solve, somewhere back there when down became up.

Psst! I won't tell them about "Deck the Halls" if you won't.

[splifford]

I basically subscribe to Terry Pratchett's idea that Christmas is all about blood on the snow and sacrifices to make the sun come back. :-)

[maestro23]

Well, that too, obviously. :)

That book nails down so much of the way I feel about, well, everything, that it's hard to exaggerate the impact it had when I first read it, except to say (as I so often do) "I know all those words - why couldn't I put them together like that?"