Folks,
I’ve been wondering how we forum folk like to spend Xmas?
A few years ago, our little family decided to drop the ‘Xmas’ label and celebrate the holiday as a winter solstice. We decorate the house with natural stuff from the forest around us, have a hearty meal together and send our greetings to wider family and friends. However, we don’t worry about the commercial hype that seems to kick off every November and I don’t even notice it these days. We witness the turning of the year, as the lengthening shadows halt for a moment and move back towards springtime. It has meaning about the passing time, memories and future. It has become quite special for us.
How do you like to spend yours?
Alex.
How do you like to spend Xmas?
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Endovelico
- Posts: 3038
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Re: How do you like to spend Xmas?
Very much my feeling too. To me Christmas is increasingly a going back to natalis solis invictus. When days start growing again and nature starts getting ready for rebirth.manolo wrote:Folks,
I’ve been wondering how we forum folk like to spend Xmas?
A few years ago, our little family decided to drop the ‘Xmas’ label and celebrate the holiday as a winter solstice. We decorate the house with natural stuff from the forest around us, have a hearty meal together and send our greetings to wider family and friends. However, we don’t worry about the commercial hype that seems to kick off every November and I don’t even notice it these days. We witness the turning of the year, as the lengthening shadows halt for a moment and move back towards springtime. It has meaning about the passing time, memories and future. It has become quite special for us.
How do you like to spend yours?
Alex.
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Nonc Hilaire
- Posts: 6203
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Re: How do you like to spend Xmas?
My preference is pious reflection on the difference between knowledge and experience. I see the germ of that reflection in the previous two comments.
Why would an impassable God want to experience joy and suffering? Why would an omniscient God feel knowledge without experience is insufficient, and why would he want to experience doubt and temptation?
We have a twelve-year old and she loves the commercial aspects. She genuinely loves the giving almost as much as the getting, picking out gifts with great care using my money
I string up Christmas lights on the house in memory of my late father, who loved them, and because it is a gift to the street. It still comes back to honoring the importance and universality of human experience.
Why would an impassable God want to experience joy and suffering? Why would an omniscient God feel knowledge without experience is insufficient, and why would he want to experience doubt and temptation?
We have a twelve-year old and she loves the commercial aspects. She genuinely loves the giving almost as much as the getting, picking out gifts with great care using my money
I string up Christmas lights on the house in memory of my late father, who loved them, and because it is a gift to the street. It still comes back to honoring the importance and universality of human experience.
“Christ has no body now but yours. Yours are the eyes through which he looks with compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks among His people to do good. Yours are the hands through which he blesses His creation.”
Teresa of Ávila
Teresa of Ávila
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Hoosiernorm
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Re: How do you like to spend Xmas?
Traveling to spend time with family is Christmas for our family. Buying presents is stressful and getting everyone dressed for a Christmas Eve service is distressing. I enjoy the beautiful music of the service and I feel a connection to something there even though I couldn't tell you what that one specific thing was in particular. The meals that you eat with each other and the time spent talking about the past and the future with time to share with each other is so incredibly good to have. I don't remember specific presents I ever got and I don't know if my kids could tell you what they got last year or the year before that or anything before two years before, but they always want to go see my in laws and my father for Christmas. I think we celebrate the time that we have to spend with each other.
Oh and I love to put up my trees and my ceramic village. I have a bunch of little painted ceramic houses with lights that I put up on my family room along with the little villagers all dressed nicely for the holiday. My Dad gave them to me a couple of years ago after he decided that it was too much work and would rather have them displayed somewhere children could look at them in wonder. I was able to give my children a memory that I have shared with my family.
Oh and I love to put up my trees and my ceramic village. I have a bunch of little painted ceramic houses with lights that I put up on my family room along with the little villagers all dressed nicely for the holiday. My Dad gave them to me a couple of years ago after he decided that it was too much work and would rather have them displayed somewhere children could look at them in wonder. I was able to give my children a memory that I have shared with my family.
Been busy doing stuff
Re: How do you like to spend Xmas?
i had intended to visit my ailing parents but instead decided to attend court and beg forgiveness on late payements for council rates which doubled this year and are now beyond my single income's household, prison time and then homelessness seemed a tad too good an oppurtunity for an ungreatful wretch like me.
i most prefer christmas to be spent working and meals to be skipped so i can fund other peoples comfy socialist existence and hope next year i can earn them even more relaxed breaks from the daily grind of sending me bills and voting themselves higher pay.
i most prefer christmas to be spent working and meals to be skipped so i can fund other peoples comfy socialist existence and hope next year i can earn them even more relaxed breaks from the daily grind of sending me bills and voting themselves higher pay.
ultracrepidarian
Re: How do you like to spend Xmas?
In [non-christian] Japan, at least in the case of the young, Christmas has been recast as a romantic season.
The ideal, from the girl's point of view, is a romantic dinner at a high end hotel.
The ideal, from the guy's point of view, is to have a room booked at the same high end hotel that ends up being used.
New Year is the closest analogue to Christmas.
Anyways, I like to spend the season as quietly as possible.
The ideal, from the girl's point of view, is a romantic dinner at a high end hotel.
The ideal, from the guy's point of view, is to have a room booked at the same high end hotel that ends up being used.
New Year is the closest analogue to Christmas.
Anyways, I like to spend the season as quietly as possible.
May the gods preserve and defend me from self-righteous altruists; I can defend myself from my enemies and my friends.
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Demon of Undoing
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Re: How do you like to spend Xmas?
So, then. A socialist.We have a twelve-year old and she loves the commercial aspects. She genuinely loves the giving almost as much as the getting, picking out gifts with great care using my money
We like spending our Christmas the old fashioned way. We nominate a guy to be the Yule king, give him everything he wants for a while, and then we burn him as a sacrifice against it staying winter for a whole year.
Ask me how we do Thanksgiving...
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Nonc Hilaire
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Re: How do you like to spend Xmas?
A socialist Household indeedDemon of Undoing wrote:So, then. A socialist.We have a twelve-year old and she loves the commercial aspects. She genuinely loves the giving almost as much as the getting, picking out gifts with great care using my money
We like spending our Christmas the old fashioned way. We nominate a guy to be the Yule king, give him everything he wants for a while, and then we burn him as a sacrifice against it staying winter for a whole year.
Ask me how we do Thanksgiving...
Except for that angel who gets a tree stuffed up her ass every year.
“Christ has no body now but yours. Yours are the eyes through which he looks with compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks among His people to do good. Yours are the hands through which he blesses His creation.”
Teresa of Ávila
Teresa of Ávila
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Mr. Perfect
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Simple Minded
Re: How do you like to spend Xmas?
I'm guessing that you eat the guy that you fattened up last Christmas....Demon of Undoing wrote:
We like spending our Christmas the old fashioned way. We nominate a guy to be the Yule king, give him everything he wants for a while, and then we burn him as a sacrifice against it staying winter for a whole year.
Ask me how we do Thanksgiving...
Re: How do you like to spend Xmas?
And a very Merry Shintomas to you too.Mr. Perfect wrote:With Christians.
May the gods preserve and defend me from self-righteous altruists; I can defend myself from my enemies and my friends.
Re: How do you like to spend Xmas?
In what must be one of the greatest marketing coups of all time, "Christmas Dinner" in Japan has been synonymous with KFC since the 1970's
May the gods preserve and defend me from self-righteous altruists; I can defend myself from my enemies and my friends.
Re: How do you like to spend Xmas?
No Kidding? That is wild.Typhoon wrote:In what must be one of the greatest marketing coups of all time, "Christmas Dinner" in Japan has been synonymous with KFC since the 1970's
"I fancied myself as some kind of god....It is a sort of disease when you consider yourself some kind of god, the creator of everything, but I feel comfortable about it now since I began to live it out.” -- George Soros
Re: How do you like to spend Xmas?
No kidding.Doc wrote:No Kidding? That is wild.Typhoon wrote:In what must be one of the greatest marketing coups of all time, "Christmas Dinner" in Japan has been synonymous with KFC since the 1970's
About 1% of the population in Japan is Christian.
So while Japan has adopted much of the modern symbolism of Christmas, x-mass trees, lights, carols, cakes, etc., the underlying religious basis has no meaning for 99% of the population. So it has evolved, or been manipulated by advertising, as a "happy time" which translates into a romantic evening for the young and a "traditional" KFC dinner for families.
I suppose one could argue that it's an ongoing evolution of the Winter Solstice celebration which was adopted by Christianity
The traditional celebrations are reserved for the New Year.
May the gods preserve and defend me from self-righteous altruists; I can defend myself from my enemies and my friends.
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Nonc Hilaire
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Re: How do you like to spend Xmas?
"Colonel of Truth" logical fallacyI suppose one could argue that it's an ongoing evolution of the Winter Solstice celebration which was adopted by Christianity
“Christ has no body now but yours. Yours are the eyes through which he looks with compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks among His people to do good. Yours are the hands through which he blesses His creation.”
Teresa of Ávila
Teresa of Ávila
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Endovelico
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Re: How do you like to spend Xmas?
Well, God's existence is doubtful, the winter solstice isn't...Typhoon wrote:(...) I suppose one could argue that it's an ongoing evolution of the Winter Solstice celebration which was adopted by Christianity
Re: How do you like to spend Xmas?
Just humour so poetic license is invoked.Nonc Hilaire wrote:"Colonel of Truth" logical fallacyI suppose one could argue that it's an ongoing evolution of the Winter Solstice celebration which was adopted by Christianity
May the gods preserve and defend me from self-righteous altruists; I can defend myself from my enemies and my friends.
Re: How do you like to spend Xmas?
Our recent Christmases have been far from normal.
In 2011 the wife already had foot drop (her ankle had stopped working) which puzzled the doctors, but which with hindsight was the first symptom of what was to come. We still had a normal family Christmas however. Four days later she had the brain haemorrhage, and you all know what followed.
In 2012 it was only six weeks after she died, I was dreading Christmas, and certainly did not want to spend it at home, some good friends stepped in and invited round and it was an unexpectedly pleasant day.
This year we are having a full traditional family Christmas at my house, my two sons and my younger son's delightful partner (have lost one woman from our otherwise little male coterie, have gained another) on Christmas day and friends round to join us on Boxing day (26th Dec). The tree is up and decorated, as is the rest of the house decorated. Our piece de resistance are two splendid large gilded plastic cherubs of the utmost vulgarity.
We don't have turkey (too bland), the family tradition is pheasant
In 2011 the wife already had foot drop (her ankle had stopped working) which puzzled the doctors, but which with hindsight was the first symptom of what was to come. We still had a normal family Christmas however. Four days later she had the brain haemorrhage, and you all know what followed.
In 2012 it was only six weeks after she died, I was dreading Christmas, and certainly did not want to spend it at home, some good friends stepped in and invited round and it was an unexpectedly pleasant day.
This year we are having a full traditional family Christmas at my house, my two sons and my younger son's delightful partner (have lost one woman from our otherwise little male coterie, have gained another) on Christmas day and friends round to join us on Boxing day (26th Dec). The tree is up and decorated, as is the rest of the house decorated. Our piece de resistance are two splendid large gilded plastic cherubs of the utmost vulgarity.
We don't have turkey (too bland), the family tradition is pheasant