hoping against hope

[olamina]

I don't think I am being a scrooge when I say I am totally inclined to agree with this recent post by Penelope Trunk. I would be much obligedhappier if non-Christians were no longer being pressured into (EDIT:17.35) celebrating Christmas. Frankly, as a Christian, I'm coming to the realization that it's being pushed down other peoples' throats

Comments

as a non-Christian celebrating Christmas:

[tuckova]

We send Christmas cards to friends and family (homemade, cause it's fun to do projects together) who observe Christmas, just like I send them birthday presents if they care about birthdays

Re: as a non-Christian celebrating Christmas:

[olamina]

But pretty much everywhere youwrote Christmas you could have put Winter Solstice or something else. The importance of it being a celebration of the birth of Christ is necessarily subtracted from the equation in order for it to work for non-religious people and really that's all it is. I think if people want to do the solstice things then they shouldnt use the word Christmas. They should use solstice or winter festival or whatever. I just don't like the word "Christmas" being applied to such a wide swath of activities or putting pressure on others to participate in said activities.

Re: as a non-Christian celebrating Christmas:

[tuckova]

True, and to be entirely honest I make a bit of a point of our cards being about winter and holidays and not about Christmas at all, even though I am sending them to Christmas-celebrators

Re: as a non-Christian celebrating Christmas:

[kellianne]

we all relate to each other as easily as possible, though. i mean, why bother with names? we're all partying. if i started calling christmas "solstice" to my family, they would laugh their asses off at me. over champagne. at the party on december 25th.

[olamina]

well i havent seen so many Christian fundamentalists saying Take Back Christmas. Quite the opposite in fact, I've more been seeing them saying things like "Look at all the Scrooges that want to stop Christmas by Calling It X-Mas , This is a Christian Country" and also getting annoyed when places dont want Christmas decorations and stuff. All those Christmas decorations are related to a lot of pagan festivities that the Christian fundamentalists refer to as "the devil". Those are the last people I would turn to save Christmas, they are the right hand evil elves of neocon capitalism.

OT

[olamina]

BTW, I was just thinking of you and wondering whether you'd sent your book over to that expatwoman.com group since I notice they do book recommendations and reviews and that.

Im sort of not into that group and that site(why must so many expat groups suck?) but it might be something to try.

[olamina]

You're right about the whole reaping what you sow. I am definitely not saying Christians are guilt-free in this situation, but I can certainly still hope and work for things to be different in the future.

However I would wager to say that most of what you want out of your face are things like the photo I posted above. Christmas is basically just a mass service to celebrate the birth of Christ (whatever day it was) so unless you walked into a church it wouldn't be in your face anyway, what IS in your face is the commercial cooptation of the mostly pagan hybrid and, frankly, we'd all do well to be rid of it...especially those of you who have to go to work and the resulting office holiday affairs (yeesh, I just got a cold chill).

[kellianne]

oh, comeon! call it what you will: it's all the festival of light! aka the winter solstice. it doesn't happen around thanksgiving, either. it's usually the 21st or the 22nd.

the heads of the catholic church declared it "christmas" to duel with pagans in the early days. they decided that christ was "the light of the world" so they took over the festival of light. it's never really been all about christ!!

in the end, no matter what we want to call it or how we want to celebrate, we're all just keeping each other warm through the shortest, darkest days.

[olamina]

call it what you will? i'm a christian and i would like to celebrate christmas as one of the major holy days of my faith. i think the world wouldbe better off if the celebration of jesus's birth and the pagnan solstice were separated. i don't disparage the pagan festival, heck i might even join in on the celebrations, but if this pagan hybrid is being used to sell a whole heap o' junk then i think Christians better set our captives free to do their thing.

[lapsedmodernist]

I feel like in America the hyper-orchestration of Christmas is tied to Thanksgiving--it creates this clearly marked consumption window and sales are structured around it. As long as Thanksgiving is a national cross-denominational holiday, it is super-profitable to ensure the Christmas is celebrated by everyone who celebrates Thanksgiving.

Consumption window

[olamina]

That phrase "consumption window" that hits the nail on the head. Thanksgiving is the tryptophane-laced gateway drug to Christmas.

Thanksgiving is the tryptophane-laced gateway drug to Christmas.

[fightingwords]

Best line I've read all day.