h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Once again it is time for the annual Christmas Chat threads.
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This thread is for those who DO NOT like Christmas, there is another thread in Misc Chat too for those who like Christmas.

Ooooh.... the commercialism drives me up the wall, I wish more people would opt out of it and make their own rules about what is going to be expected of them... People used to be grateful for friendship, family, warmth and a feast!

Well said Robyn, Christmas is turning into a farce, with awful adverts that just go on and on encouraging us to eat too much and drink too much. If I hear "Go on, don't be a scrooge its Christmas" one more time I will kill someone.

The kids are warned for weeks ahead that if they are not good then santa will not visit, but then strangers in shops keep asking "What is father christmas bringing you then" and mum answers a bike or guilded mansion or whatever.

Over the years christmas has become a complete misery to me. I regret all the Christmas's when drunk husbands or fathers turned everything to shambles, I am reminded of people that I have lost contact with because of family disfunction. While all the time I am told that Christmas is a time for families everyone goes home for Christmas, well what about people who have no home, who have no body to care about them.

In most psychiatric units you will find that patients can handle much of the year but Christmas is a time of suicide and misery even for those of us who can afford to spend money come boxing day we feel empty because Christmas is a great big anti climax built up from September onwards ending with freaky office parties, awful family reunions which lead to even more animosity and wasted money on gifts that are not appreciated.

Christmas comes but once a year,
But it sticks around for ever.

Can I be the first to say:

"It's not even December yet and there is anti-Christmas sentiment"

I'd also like to high-5 Cookiekate for that marvelous description and how it is just so easy to forget those facts.

I'm going to an anti-christmas gig next month... my friend's thrash band Irony of Christ are playing

Perhaps one year we should arrange a christmas meet... between christmas and new year maybe? go camping?

I have always wanted to spend Christmas on a beach ... I mean in Australia or NZ --- One day!!

in a big luxurious hotel in vienna when I was five... It was our first one since mum and dad split up, and it was

I got a excessmas decorated bag when I shopped today. It was an unnecessary bag as well. My purchases were not more than they fitted into my own bag.

you *can* refuse a bag, I often do...

Mine keeps coming home with me Ooooh, bet I get modded for that pun

Ooh, hurrah! More people to gripe about Christmas and how much I hate it with.

I hate the commercialism, too. It's a real drag being innundated with it all, and it begins earlier every year. Some of the store windows downtown- Marshall Field's/Macy's in particular- started putting their decorations up the day after Halloween. We still had the *air conditioning* on then.

Then there's the blasted music. I hate Christmas music to begin with, but why is it necessary for the stores to start playing it over the loudspeakers well before Thanksgiving? And the radio station that does all holiday music started the second week of November, too.

And then there's the influx of cards from people I barely know, containing offensive religious sentiments. If you don't care enough about me to know I don't share your silly superstitions, why are you sending me a card?

Family gatherings aren't all that great, either. Especially when the hosts *insist* that they do not need me to bring anything, then serve only a ham and a turkey, which I cannot eat. This year I'm bringing my own entree and the hell with 'em. I'm tired of starving.

The only good thing about the whole stupid holiday is that I get a four-day weekend, and only one day is wasted on the actual ordeal.

I'm sorry if this rant sounds very middle class but the thing I hate most about Christmas is that public transport grinds to a halt.

The buses and metro become jammed packed full of people carrying the carcasses of million year old dead animals in bag form that they have to constantly knock into you with. I wouldn't mind but those bags contain breeze blocks and shards of glass and if you get home with any patch of non-bruised skin its a good day.

I mean why? Is it collective guilt. Have these people been so unduly irresponsible during the year that they have to make it up with friends and family by shameless materialism. The money is better spent on booze and holidays or something of which is guaranteed to make you and your loved ones share a collective happiness.

While I dont share the basis of your sentiment, I do agree with your opinion on what would be much better ways of spending the sort of money that gets spent, and on the reasons for the excessive materialism...

Certainly I'm pulling it back as much as I can. most of our christmas day is about being together and seing people, sharing good food and good times. Money only comes into it really with the people I dont spend the time with!

Having agreed to not spend the money on friends though (a group of us have large families and are skint, so we're having a gathering instead) I am buying a secret present for my best mate. Having a young baby, her husband and her brother, she will only get one or two presents and I intend to ensure she gets one that nobody knows about, a real santa claus visit