NationStates Jolt Archive

Seems to me that Christmas doesn't mean as much to people any more. And I'm not talking about the religious meaning - in secular Europe, few people have given a damn about the religious aspect for at least a couple of generations now, except in the most superficial way.

I'm talking about the commercial aspect. And it's not that I have grown up and no longer receive much in the way of gifts, it's a general observation. Everyone I know, people spanning the whole range of ages, doesn't seem to care about Christmas even as a celebration of materialism. They're not planning anything special, it's just a bit more internet shopping than usual (kids get cool stuff all year round now, so it's nothing special), dinner with the family, save the drinking for New Year's Eve, then back to work. Christmas has become boring. For the purposes of organising the family's calendar, it's just another school holiday.

So if you're in the UK, Europe or a non-fundamentalist area of the US, do you feel that the nihilist children of the computer age have grown up and stopped caring about the holiday and the binge of consumerism that has accompanied it for so long?

Well I will tell you one thing... AMERICANS ARE CRAZED ABOUT IT!! Not the religious part, the shopping. I mean it is crazy... It has even infected some other religions, such as Jewish families buying more crap then they ought to. In Israel Hannukah is very minimalistic...

I certainly wish it were dead, but as to the veracity of it, I can just say that to me, it is.

Christmas... The holiday that used to be a pagan fertility celebration until the Christians high jacked it for their own purposes?

That holiday (Christmas) is just another day on the calander that has a few more lights than the rest.

Christmas... The holiday that used to be a pagan fertility celebration until the Christians high jacked it for their own purposes?

That holiday (Christmas) is just another day on the calander that has a few more lights than the rest.

I thought that was lupercalia (sp?) Where the men had on goat skins and would go around hitting women with sticks...

Saturnalia is the one the Catholics tried to replace with Christmas. It was for the harvest...

IO SATURNALIA YALL!!!

I can say that here in Australia, things haven't changed much. In fact, people try to defend celebrating Christmas as a "family holiday".

I've personally given up celebrating Christmas.

I thought that was lupercalia (sp?) Where the men had on goat skins and would go around hitting women with sticks...

Saturnalia is the one the Catholics tried to replace with Christmas. It was for the harvest...

IO SATURNALIA YALL!!!
Well, yeah and then there's Yule in the old Scandinavian/Germanic religion, although that's more vague as it's not precisely the same date... Just sort of... on the solstice, isn't it?

Moving back to the topic at hand, it's more of... just an excuse for (a bit more :P) binge drinking now, I think. I suppose it's really a family-by-family thing, though.