This time of year - for or against it?

[Art Eatman]

Ah, you young people!  You ain't old enough to be GOFs!

When I was a kid, my mother's parents were big on "doing" Thanksgiving and Christmas as a time of family gatherings.  Later on, though, it seemed like nobody really cared about any group gatherings of relatives.

My first wife and I rather amicably broke up after 20 years.  For some months after that I was sharing a house with a couple of other "bachelors" and Christmas came along.  I decided on a "homeless waifs and strays" Christmas party, and wound up with about twenty guys and gals who had no Christmas home-deal to go to.  One of the better parties I'd seen in years.  Fun but not raucous, lots of sharing of memories...

A good part of life in Terlingua is that the whole danged place is a sort of extended family, or maybe two or three extended families, given our growth over the last twenty years.  There's always some sort of gathering, somewhere, in honor of major holidays and quite often "just because".  Full moon, solstice, whatever.  We have a mufch simnpler and less complex world here than in the cities.  Much less artificiality.

And this year is gonna be a good one, near as I can tell.  My son and DIL and her mother and aunt will come over from Germany; BossLady Fran will be here, and my mother (95, now) is still chugging along.  Probably have a waif or stray or two join in...

, Art

[Felonious Monk/Fignozzle]

I have to admit when I saw the title of the thread, I thought it was going to be a "evils of Halloween vs. evils of Christian alternatives" kind of thing.  
I was relieved when I finally read it to find out what it's REALLY about.

Unfortunately, Mayberry is gone. It was bulldozed over to put in a Wal-Mart. :/

Nope, not gone.  Just harder to find.  We're in a town that has half the population turn out to watch the other half walk down the street dressed up and riding on their trucks, cars, boats, floats and such about 5-6 times a year.  ANY excuse for a parade.

We're an hour from an interstate highway in any direction.
...but there IS a Wallyworld out on the 4-lane.  

It is the people, the memories, and the fun stuff - nobody says you cannot make your own Traditions.

One we've started is making Thanksgiving into "the champagne holiday"... I always buy a huge bottle or two of Freixenet champagne (black bottle) and a gold or silver marker, and each of us during the afternoon write what we are thankful for on the bottle.  
We also write our hopes for the coming year on a 3x5 card (any strip of paper would do) and once the bottle is emptied, roll 'em up and stuff 'em in the bottle.

I've got about a half a closet full of bottles now, with notes from family and folks, some of whom are no longer with us.


Declaration Day-- I've been avoiding holiday shopping any way other than what UPS or FedEx can bring for 5 years now...intend on NEVER entering a mall again, unless my life depends on it.

[P95Carry]

I'm with Gewehr here - commercialism for me ruins the best aspects of ''holidays'' - and so yeah - things were better way back when.

I am not a religious man so - Christmas holds no special aspects for me but - sure as heck wish it was not so darned commercially oriented so those folks who DO want it to be what it should be - can enjoy it!