Worse Than Christmas Stuff Being Out in Stores

[charby]

And if you don't want to put up the Christmas tree right after labor day, you're a scrooge.

I wanna celebrate Halloween to piss off the JWs and Evangelicals. 

[slingshot]

"Christmas" or the Christmas season starts with Thanksgiving as far as I'm concerned and lasts until the Epiphany as far as I'm concerned.  The Christmas movies have already started.  I enjoy a lot those feel good movies actually.

I have actually purchased a couple Christmas gifts.  Started a couple years ago and I have been giving planted Amaryllis bulbs.  You need to buy early for the selection.  Seems to be a good concept for adults that generally have just about everything they need anyway.  This assumes that they like "plants".  If they continue to grow them after they bloom, then more power to them and they can enjoy them for years.

[K Frame]

Eventually it becomes a broken record.

This is the first time I've ever accused you of being Santa's Elf.

A leprechaun? Yes.

A Keebler Elf? Oh hell yes.

This one was a whole new record!

[K Frame]

When I was a kid, we didn't decorate our Christmas tree until Christmas eve. It was a family tradition.

After my Dad died that sort of slipped as my Mom got older and it became more and more of a chore.

Last year, with Mom's issues and the fact that we had caregivers in for her, we didn't put up a Christmas tree. Her caregivers did, and that was fine.

Last year was the first year that I actively dreaded the holidays. There was way too much change, and I knew it was going to be trying for Mom because of all of the commotion. I didn't know how right I was.

I spent my entire Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks at Mom's explaining, over and over and over and over and over and over again that:

No, I wasn't going to take her home because she was home.

That my grandmother was NOT ignoring her because grandma (Dad's mother, and previous owner of the house when Mom was a kid) had been dead for 15 years

That other grandma (her Mother) wasn't in the bathroom, because she died in 1980 and, perhaps the worst one of all,

No, I wasn't the 1955 version of my Father.

By the day after Christmas, I didn't just dread the holidays, I actively hated them, and I hated a God that would allow someone's mind to decay like that.


Now that Mom is gone, this is the first year since in close to 20 that I'm not dreading making the trip for both Thanksgiving and Christmas. I don't know what I'm doing for the holidays this year, but I'm seriously thinking that I'm going to say the hell home, watch movies with Seren, grill some burgers, and say *expletive deleted*ck it totally.

[slingshot]

After my Mom died, my desire to go home for Christmas substantially reduced.  It became a go home during "good weather" thing, perhaps a couple of times.  After Dad died, I honestly have not been "home".  I am just not drawn anymore.  I know that I am at fault and should be making an effort to visit my Brothers and Sisters more.

[AJ Dual]

Once Mrs. Dual and I scaled back our Christmas decorations to a single smallish/skinny artificial tree that already has the lights on it, and did all of our Christmas shopping from bed on a laptop online...

Strangely, I started liking Christmas again.

However, Mrs. Dual's insistence on running Hallmark Channel "Holiday Romance" movies is threatening to undo it all.

[slingshot]

We went to a nice artificial tree (with the lights already on it) a few years ago.  I still like it, but last year we decided to just use a Norfolk Island Pine (large/tall house plant) with lights and decorations as our "christmas tree".  It worked well as my wife generally prefers a real tree.  I like real trees, but I dislike the falling needles and killing a tree just to place it in my house for a month or so.

The story around the Norfolk Island Pine house plant is interesting.... my wife gave it to her friend's son at the hospital as a little thing (maybe 8" tall)... typical store bought arrangement.  Her friend had died in a car accident, her son was injured, and my wife was pretty distraught.  When the kid got out of the hospital, he didn't want the house plant so we took it home.  It is now about 3.5-4 feet tall.

[Andiron]

We went to a nice artificial tree (with the lights already on it) a few years ago.  I still like it, but last year we decided to just use a Norfolk Island Pine (large/tall house plant) with lights and decorations as our "christmas tree".  It worked well as my wife generally prefers a real tree.  I like real trees, but I dislike the falling needles and killing a tree just to place it in my house for a month or so.

Funny, we've got the same thing going.  Wife got a Norfolk pine as an office gift years ago,  and the little bastard isn't all that little anymore.  Hers is almost 3' tall,  few more years and it's definitely pulling Christmas tree duty.

[Perd Hapley]

No artificials for me, please. I figure if I'm going to have to go to the trouble of setting up a tree every year, and have to live with it for a month, I want it to be a real tree.

And that way, I don't have to store a fake tree for 11 months every year.

[slingshot]

Funny, we've got the same thing going.  Wife got a Norfolk pine as an office gift years ago,  and the little bastard isn't all that little anymore.  Hers is almost 3' tall,  few more years and it's definitely pulling Christmas tree duty.

We keep it outside during the warm months and bring it in when the first freezing temps are predicted.  They still are house plants and when temps get below about 50 degrees, it's time to bring them in or simply make the decision to let nature take it's course.

[Perd Hapley]

Article about Hallmark Christmas movies:

https://ricochet.com/468214/hallmark-christmas-movieshallmark-christmas-movieshallmark-christmas-movies/

I've seen a few of these, which are just like all the other Hallmark movies wifey watches, but with Christmas trees. They don't bother me in the least. The main characters nearly always have a healthy desire to, you know, settle down with someone of the opposite sex. As most humans do, in the real world. No one's finding redemption by believing in themselves enough to pull off that perfect routine at the oh-so-important dance competition. No one is noticeably homosexual, but you can't really tell, since everyone keeps their sex lives to themselves. The families and family-members may not be perfect, but they are basically functional and loving. Though the movies are made for women, the men are generally competent, and not uniformly boorish or stupid. The setting is often an idealized small-town America, which is pleasant, and relaxing. The protagoness is quite often some actress I had a crush on 25 years ago, and magically still looks nearly as good.

The formula works. What's not to like? [shrug]

[K Frame]

There's apparently a Leonberger in at least one of the movies on Hallmark, including at least one Christmas movie. No one in any of the Leonberger groups can figure out whose it is.

OK, this picture is from At Home in Mitford. Not a Christmas movie, but whatever...

[RevDisk]

I know APS has a large population of Christmas music haters. I actually love listening to Christmas music, pretty much all older standards, classical, and kraut music that the folks played when I was a kid. It's always a happy reminiscence for me, especially as the family is dying off.

Get locked in a top secret government facility for 14 hour shifts, and be forced to listen to the same two xmas music CDs on repeat, and I guarantee you'll develop a markedly intensive hatred of all xmas music for the rest of your life. I'm not saying the music is bad. It's not. Most of it is appealing under safe conditions. I'm saying it is repetitive and causes insane hatred, rage and psychotic violence due to overexposure. If kept to appropriate dosage, it would be fine.

However, I would assert that we should institute a mandatory death sentence for stores that put out xmas stuff before Thanksgiving. Certainly it shouldn't be questioned that we should torture THEN kill people who put out xmas stuff before Halloween, with the obvious exemption for ironic Christmas-Halloween crossover displays.

[makattak]

On the Christmas displays, I'm less annoyed about things like craft stores or home improvement stores putting out crafts and decorations early- some people need time to prepare.

So, I'm willing to vote for Rev's proposed solutions, so long as they get a special post-Halloween, pre-Thanksgiving carve-out.

If you need more than a month to prepare, buy it the year before.



Also, on the repetitive Christmas music, there are literally thousands (probably 10s of thousands) of versions of a myriad of Christmas songs: Choral, solo, orchestra, solo instrumental, quartet, brass, wind, strings, accordion, organ, piano, duets, trios, etc...

You could go the entire Christmas season with Christmas songs playing round the clock from Dec 1 (or the day after Thanksgiving, if you want to go early) to Epiphany (if you want to extend the season) and NEVER listen to the same song twice. Instead we get Mariah Carey's "All I want for Christmas is you" and John Lennon's horrific "So this is Christmas" and Paul McCartney's terrible "Last Christmas" and Dan Fogelberg's horrid "The Same Old Lang Syne" played every single hour on a continuous loop.

It's no wonder people hate Christmas music.  Even the songs that DON'T start out as terrible get on people's nerves.

[Perd Hapley]

Also, on the repetitive Christmas music, there are literally thousands (probably 10s of thousands) of versions of a myriad of Christmas songs: Choral, solo, orchestra, solo instrumental, quartet, brass, wind, strings, accordion, organ, piano, duets, trios, etc...

You could go the entire Christmas season with Christmas songs playing round the clock from Dec 1 (or the day after Thanksgiving, if you want to go early) to Epiphany (if you want to extend the season) and NEVER listen to the same song twice. Instead we get Mariah Carey's "All I want for Christmas is you" and John Lennon's horrific "So this is Christmas" and Paul McCartney's terrible "Last Christmas" and Dan Fogelberg's horrid "The Same Old Lang Syne" played every single hour on a continuous loop.

It's no wonder people hate Christmas music.  Even the songs that DON'T start out as terrible get on people's nerves.

This very much. And you forgot all that Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree, Little Saint Nick garbage, too.

[Ben]

Also, on the repetitive Christmas music, there are literally thousands (probably 10s of thousands) of versions of a myriad of Christmas songs: Choral, solo, orchestra, solo instrumental, quartet, brass, wind, strings, accordion, organ, piano, duets, trios, etc...

Thanks to the interwebz, for several years now I have been finding "new" old music to listen to. There really is a ton of good classic/standard stuff out there. I was also able to find some older German Christmas music that I thought I would never hear again after my folks "lost" some of the old albums. I haven't found it all, but the search has led me to more "new" old stuff, so all is good. :)

[K Frame]

When I worked at Navy Federal, for the several days leading up to Christmas break they would play, at a relatively low level, Kenny G's Christmas album... on a repetitive loop.

It was maddening.

[Angel Eyes]

When I worked at Navy Federal, for the several days leading up to Christmas break they would play, at a relatively low level, Kenny G's Christmas album... on a repetitive loop.

It was maddening.

So that explains it.



And just for grins:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUFfeTjuPeg

[K Frame]

It was maddening until, with the marketing director's "permission," I yanked the leads on all of the speakers in our department.

Problem solved.

[makattak]

Instead we get Mariah Carey's "All I want for Christmas is you" and John Lennon's horrific "So this is Christmas" and Paul McCartney's terrible "Last Christmas" and Dan Fogelberg's horrid "The Same Old Lang Syne" played every single hour on a continuous loop.

The irony is far too thick for me to let this pass.

My wife teaches dance, so several of her students are preparing for a Christmas show. That meant I got to hear a lot of Christmas music last night. (Not prominent, but I could still hear it). Guess what one of them chose for her song? No, no, guess!
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Yep, Mariah Carey's "All I want for Christmas is you". So I got to hear that for an hour straight. Usually not even the whole song, just snippets as they practiced different parts.
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THANKFULLY, I'm not the sort to go nuts over repetitive songs. AND it was only an hour. And, that was the least-bad song of the four I mentioned. I couldn't help but think how many people would be driven nuts by that though.

[Perd Hapley]

Some of my most favoritest "Christmas" music occurs when some pop/R&B/whatever vocalist takes a well-known holiday/seasonal song, and sings it just as seductively as they do their usual set list.    Unless you're singing "Santa Baby," you should not be attempting to turn us on with Christmas music.

[Perd Hapley]

Here is some real Christmas music, suckas.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wit-jGD4wCw