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

I thought that for the first time in years I was going to get through September without seeing signs of Christmas in the shops. Yeah OK, I'm stupid. I have just been to the local supermarket and there they are. Stacks of sweets in those large family tins, collections of choc bars in loads of packaging that doubles the price with Rudolph on the front, AND rows of artificial Christmas trees! Are you going to buy your artificial tree yet with three months to go? Store it in the shed perhaps! Could you not eat those sweets and chocolates between now and December?
A couple of years ago I read about a town in Holland that decided not to have any sign of Christmas on the streets or in the shops until December 17th. They then had extra late night shopping etc. and enjoyed it all.
Last year I finally persuaded my family not to put up cards or decorate the tree until Christmas Eve. For me the best moment is the first morning after the day it all goes up and this time that morning was Christmas Day. OK it was only a brief visual thing, but it worked. Usually the stuff has been around for a week and you have got used to it.
Back to the main point. When Christmas is over we get months of Easter eggs. When they are gone it's BACK TO SCHOOL signs everywhere and they haven't even broken up for the summer holidays. Then we come full circle and you can get your Christmas stuff in September.
I HAVEN'T FINISHED WATCHING THE OLYMPICS YET!!!!
And now I have just realised that I am guilty of doing what I am complaining about by mentioning Christmas here in September!
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHRRR!

It's disgusting isn't it! I've noticed advertisements in magazines for restaurants and bars here in London, encouraging you to book your Christmas party with them (well I suppose they can get booked up) There's also two houses round the corner from me that still haven't taken down the lights that they put up on the front of their house last year - you know things in the shape of father Christmas on a sleigh and things like that - tacky I think the word is. I confess that my sister told me recently that she had already bought all of her cards and wrapping paper from one of these mail order catalogues. I’m frankly ashamed she's related to me - how sad!

I hate to be a bore, but if you think of it from the point of view of the store, it's just all to drive profits, to them Christmas doesn't mean the birthday of Christ, it means, 'great we can sell stuff at twice the price and get away with it'. It annoys me too and I'm not Christmas shopping until at least early December and same goes for Easter, school supplies etc.
BTW how old RU Brian?, you go to school?

Apparently Harrods had some Chritmas 'stuff' in in August. Personally I don't believe anyone sends more cards or buys more presents just because they are being promoted for months before Christmas. Personally I think they should suggest a ban on all Christmas decorations etc. until lst December (the beginning of Advent). The one exception would be discrete Christmas cards and wrapping for sale a little earlier, for those who need to post abroad.

Eveyone I know is so sick of Christmas being rammed down their throats for months before Christmas, it totally ruins what should be enjoyable festive holiday.

Hi Chizzel,
You're quite right about the commercial aspect of course. It's just that I wish they would agree to start at the same time, much later. 24th December would do for me. No I am not still at school I'm glad to say -WORST days of my life. But there are those who claim to be my children who still are in spite of my great age - great compared to you anyway. I slipped up there. The last one was a daughter and I wanted a spaniel. Oh well, she's almost learnt to get the paper without spoiling it.
B of B

Ah, Christmas, "The holiday that won't go away." Every year some new movie comes out where some rosy-cheeked kid says "Wouldn't it be great if it was Christmas every day?" That demented dream becomes more of a reality with every passing year. The companies ramrod the commercial aspect, the religious types ramrod the religious aspect, and what could be a fun winter festival for the rest of us who don't care about either becomes a four-month torment, and we get drunk and wild on New Year's Eve just to celebrate the fact that we don't have to deal with that obnoxious holiday for another nine months... or perhaps this year it will only be eight?

And yes, I have had a Christmas sighting. One of the ladies at work brought in a fund raiser for her child, and it was selling nothing but trite Christmas disposables... knick-knacks and gew-gaws of various Christmas themes. I remember a time when I was a child that you didn't start thinking about Christmas until after the fourth Thursday in November (Thanksgiving Day in the US). At the expense of sounding old... Ah, the good old days...

I work as a courier and have been delivering christmas cards since July. I think it would be good manners to wait untill August Bank Holiday passes before starting the process.

Who sends Christmas cards in July?, even to the other side of the world that is surely way too early. Ahhh.... some things in life I will never understand......

I just received my 3rd mail order catalog for christmas crap. 3rd!!! I refuse to even think about Christmas until the end of November. Some of the stores have little corners set up, and I went into a Hallmark card shop the other day and they had holiday music playing. I started to sing the US National anthem loudly as a sort of protest (Believe it or not it was the only non-holiday song I could come up with in the blink of an eye). I prefer to do my shopping the old familiar way, the last two days before Christmas, make a mad rush to the shops, and spend all of Christmas Eve madly wrapping gifts.

The worst thing about Christmas in England is that after months of build-up - you wake up on Christmas morning expecting to see Santa disappearing over the snow-covered chinmey tops (because that's what all those seasonal films and Coca-cola told you) and it is PISSING with rain. It ALWAYS rains on Christmas day - it is warm, wet and windy and it just adds to the overall sense of disappointment after all the hype.

Some years in the states, it is not much better. Here in Illinois, it is supposed to be snowy and cold, however, for the last few years it has looked brown and muddy. That just adds insult to injury.

Well, it's not much more than a month until christmas yet and I haven't done a single bit of shopping for presents, and you know what. I'm damn proud. I'm saving the christmas shopping for christmas. End of.

catch ya on the flip side

Chizzel

I've been to IKEA to buy a bulb for my christmas-star in the window. Did it about a week ago just to get it done before the real rush starts. I've also had plans of doing the Big Cleaning of my room, but maybe I skip that part this year, as it's going to look the same after christmas anyway.

As an American, I would just like to say Let Thanksgiving Be Thanksgiving. It's a perfectably serviceable holiday. Food, football, and napping. What could be better? It gets drowned out by the cacophony over Christmas. The first sign I saw of Christmas came a week before Halloween, when I saw a Christmas CD (Elvis Presley's "Blue Christmas", now that's the reason for the season) for sale on cable television. That's usually the first glimmer of that big 'ol tree over the horizon.

When I was a child, I pestered my parents as soon as the last of the cranberry relish was eaten to put up the Christmas tree, so I can see how other families end up putting up decorations a bit early. If nothing else, it shuts the kids up.

I refuse to take part in the obscene materialistic gorging on tasteless knick-knacks and useless paraphenalia at any time...before December.

Uh, I meant perfectly

I am not a great Christmas fan, costs to much, eat to much, drink too much and end up being sick too much!

Still this year for a change I completed my Christmas shopping by the end of November, this is joyous thing as I always did it Christmas Eve at about 4.30 in the afternoon!

Now all I have to worry about is if I have enough Nurofen to get me through the parties. As for the decorations, I live on my own so I don't have to bother with that crap, and my folks feed me on x-mas day so I do have an easy ride of it now.

However one thing I do hate is the innoying people who always insist on telling you how many shopping days are left, back in August!!!

Smile it will be over soon,

R :o)

Why yes, I have. Today, it is the day after Thanksgiving, and I am currently avoiding all retail establishments, because today is the biggest retail day of the year. Some stores opened here at 5 a.m., an ungodly hour for anyone to sell anything to anyone else, unless it's illegal. But as for seeing Christmas, the lights on a neighbor's house are already up, and my four-year-old wants to know when Santa is coming. Yikes. I just have to suck it up and hope for the best. Which means shopping the week before. Personally, I think it has become overly-commercialized. And whatever happened to Hanukah and Kwanza, anyway?

And just what exactly is "Boxing Day"? Oh, and Nurofen?

I've just got to say it.I can feel it bubbling and bursting up through my larynx.I just can't hang on to it anymore.

BAH HUMBUG!

Scrooge got it right.
There's also something else he say's that I can't quite remember along the lines of every fool with Merry Christmas on his lips should be boiled along with the Christmas pudding and with a spig of holly through his heart.

At this time of year I just wish I could go live with the bears and hibernate.

I'm assuming that you weren't joking. Boxing day is the day after christmas. I'm probably wrong, but I think it is called that because people used to box up all their leftovers or unwanted gifts etc.. and give them to the poor. Correct me if I'm wrong. And nurofen is a brand of painkiller