Anyone else dislike/hate Christmas?

kowloonkev

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124039401#Comment_124039401

There's nothing worse than being in the middle of a heaving shop while everyone is clamouring to buy stuff nobody needs. Absolutely horrible.

That's why we need to have Christmas shopping in October/November to avoid that as much as possible.

taxAHcruel

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124040672#Comment_124040672

Not in the slightest. Not one part of my post is "riled up" at all. I fear you may be projecting.

I think the "driving" bit a pedantic correction. The point is I find it curious people get bothered by others getting on with their lives and business at all. Let alone to the point of photographing them. Double for a photograph that may seem pervy.

I have more respect for the elderly's ability to cross roads too. It's an unfortunate aspect of society that our walk ways occasionally get blocked. Building or road works. Events. Queues. And more.

If you go to some of the bars around places like Fairview on the Sunday of a big GAA game for example you will see scenes similar outside the bars of people spilling out onto the street. As you will on Leaving Cert Results night and Paddys day. I've never fallen brainlessly into traffic avoiding any of those. That's a you thing again.

Instead I selected another equally safe route that inconvenienced me to the tune of not more than 4 or 5 minutes and did not put myself (and likely others) in danger just to signal my righteous indignation that my first world sensibilities had been offended :)

Trampas

Christmas Day can be the most military day of the year. A lot of people have a timetable to be place x at time y and put this on at now for dinner at then. Before they know it is 6pm before they can sit down and switch off.

Never mind eating same dinner for days

taxAHcruel

I've heard that dinner complaint a few times over the years. Never quite understood it. What is the actual issue with a few times over the year (may include Christmas) having a dinner that lasts 2 or more days? I would often do this voluntarily.

Especially if the complaint is the regimented effort of getting that dinner made. It sounds like a lot of effort. But if said effort then carries over to subsequent days of then no effort - is that not a pay off?

Ok sure if it's Turkey I kinda get it. Not sure I would want to eat that on 2 subsequent mouthfuls lets alone days :) :)

Strangely one person in my own family who complains if they have the same dinner even twice in a row is someone who eats the exact same breakfast and the exact same lunch every day for 50 years.

Cyclingtourist

There's the general festive excuse for bad behaviour 'Ah, sure it's Christmas'. The difference with other traditional celebrations is that 'Christmas' can last weeks or months in Ireland while the 25th December is probable one of the quietest days of the year.

taxAHcruel

That is a bit chicken and egg though.

If people want or need to blow off some "bad behavior" - (which is subjective - as I suspect much of what YOU consider bad behavior worthy of irate photography is likely to be rather benign in reality) - they will always find an excuse to justify it.

Christmas just happens to be a handy one. If you pressed a magic button and deleted Christmas from reality - it would just find another locus. Especially at that time of year. Festivities and more at the time of the Winter Solstice has long been a societal human thing. A celebration of the hedonism of life - at symbolically nature's largest time of death and scarcity. Try Oktoberfest sometime :)

Put it this way. Lightning rods do not CAUSE lightning to strike. It is going to strike anyway. It just allows us decide where it is more likely to strike. Turning around and then blaming the lightning rod is a rather weird over simplification.

zell12

Was there not a christmas before Christ, before missionaries came and appropriated it? When we celebrated the shortest day of the year, marking that days were longer from now on and a reason to keep living, built huge sone monuments to it, and gorged on some saved harvest food and slaughtered pigs

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124041545#Comment_124041545

The Christian festival was moved to sit on top of the pagan equivalents all across Europe in the ~300s I believe.

zell12

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124041568#Comment_124041568

Maybe it is time to go back to what our ancestors knew best 💡

Grizzly 45

Its been utterly poisioned now with crass commercialism starting in Sept in some cases! By now in the 1st week of Dec am already pissed off with it all and wish it was over. Hate to think and feel for those folks who are on the pins trying to keep a roof over the heads being hit every year by this "festivity" and having to fork out for the latest toy or electronic POS for their kids as well,that you can buy at 50%sale price on the 27th in many cases. Along now with "Black Friday",AKA sell your crap non moving stock off at cost price day/week people are being fleeced left right and center. There was a town in Holland who had the right idea, ban all Xmas adverts,decorations,markets, etc untill Dec 1st.Thier big celebration is Dec 6th Nickolas day, so it gave people a break from being hammered in their wallets,and gave people a break to anticipate both Nickolas and Xmas in Dec,Might be an idea for the rest of us to emulate this law.

dxhound2005

What is the name of that town in Holland?

midlander12

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124038767#Comment_124038767

I ignore it these days. It's easier now with the likes of Netflix, the Skybox and iPods meaning you can ignore live TV and radio.

It's mainly a UK and Irish thing, I think. Elsewhere it's just a day off work, at most. I remember being in Paris once in early December and apart from the odd Xmas tree here and there and a few lights in the shops, you wouldn't know anything was happening. Here it seems to go on for two weeks. Before I retired I used to go back to work on the 27th and a week or 10 days later I'd still be filling in gaps left by staff who were still off because their kids were off school, or something.

Beechwoodspark

when I worked in frontline retail I detested christmas - working until 9 Christmas Eve then back in at 6.30 am stephens day will do that to ye…

Place mobbed by people rushing around like headless chickens buying stuff they don’t actually want or need…

then back at the shop on stephens morning complaining about lack of bargains …

Beechwoodspark

As well often been the guy to completely tear the arse out of it Christmas Eve (Mulled wine followed by rake of bulmers followed by a load of voddy why not sure it’s Christmas….)

and dying a martyrs death of a hangover on the big day itself meaning I don’t even enjoy the 1 day I have off before up at stupid o clock for Stephens day work FML

freshpopcorn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124041655#Comment_124041655

The Netherlands Celebrate Christmas kind of differently from what I know. In Mid November Sinterklaas starts visiting towns.

He then comes on about 5th of December.

Then Santa can visit from Finland/Lapland on the 25th.

I don't think it's a law and more of a tradition.

Like here in Ireland when a lot don't put there decorations up until the 8th of December.

I'd say on Boards Netherlands they complain about having to do so much also.

wildwillow

I ignore it mostly. Don't bother anymore with decorations etc. I give presents to my grandchildren, will ask what they want and usually I oblige. Have made a pact with the rest of the family and friends that we don't need "stuff" so dispensed with gifts.

It begins too early, people overspend on rubbish and put themselves and others under pressure to have the "perfect day".

BrianD3

the consumerism and BS are easy to avoid. It's very possible to have a relatively low key Christmas while still enjoying some of the traditions, food etc. However, the last time I really enjoyed it was 2009. Since then, loved ones have been getting sick, needing care and dying meaning each Christmas was worse than the one before.

People who get bolloxed drunk, focus on mindless consumerism and one upmanship and fight with their partners and families during this period are morons who don't deserve to have families.

All my family are gone now. This year Christmas will be like any normal weekend except longer. From when I finish work on the 23rd to when I'm back on around the 2nd, I won't speak to anyone. I'll lift weights in my home gym and watch the Darts on TV, that's it.

Hooked

I don't mind it. Late 40's - no kids - moved to the country so no longer have to ferry the folks about or make sure I visit the locally living relatives. Get two weeks off work, chill at home, have people over and get to (over) use the man-cave… hic.

Present buying is limited to one afternoon. All the nieces n nephews are of an age where cash (or vouchers) are king. Wife and I just tell each other what we want… no stress. Just sit back and relax…

littlefeet

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124042134#Comment_124042134

Are you content with that, though?

littlefeet

Do you not visit your parents?

yagan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124041458#Comment_124041458

Grand if it was a mid winter celebration, but these days the xmas season seems to kick off before autumn equinox making it three straight months of commercial onramping.

I remember when our towns xmas lights didn't get put up til early December and the shops would only put decorations up around the 8th.

It's gone beyond ridiculous now, totally silly, and I don't feel I'm ruining anyone's October and November xmas spirit by saying that.

Floppybits

I like the build up to Christmas, the buzz in the shops and I like the time off. I have a 10 year old so for a few years there it was good, doing all the Santa stuff and even putting the Santa stuff together on Christmas Eve and Christmas day. I use to work part time in a bar when I was younger and it was great at Christmas time/New year, then after new year the place was dead. 😂 I do hate the christmas songs, they do your head in but other than that I don't mind it but I don't like New Years, never did, usually by that time I am ready to go back to work and not see family again for a few weeks.

Goldengirl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124038777#Comment_124038777

This.

It's a long bleak dark winter and we need a bit of something to brighten it up , be that lights, food , presents or songs and music , religious or not .

Even people 100s of years ago found something to celebrate at the longest darkest nights to try to break it up .

For me I like to keep it simple, warm white lights as @thomil said ... but everywhere 😁

It's what gets me through the awful business of those hours from Christmas Eve to after dinner Christmas Day ( apart from a few hours relief on Christmas Eve night ) when that bloody dinner takes over , then I crash and start to enjoy again .

Lucky I have my immediate family but less and less my extended family since our parents died . That pull home is gone and now my own home is where it's at .

I loved travelling home for Christmas when I worked away or abroad . The excitement getting on a plane or a train , seeing Dad waiting to collect me and Mam at the kitchen window when we got to the house ❤️ yes, I miss that and them but glad I had that . ( Crying now remembering ) but will try to make those warm loving memories now for my own family .

That's what it means to me .. I can do without shops and tinsel and toy shows ..but not Christmas lights and my Christmas Tree ! ⭐🌲

PS good thread OP . I like the Christmas Forum . But there are negatives to the holiday which are not always discussed unless you have a thread like this which can be lonely and isolating for people who might not be having the jolliest of times .

Goldengirl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124041741#Comment_124041741

Try working night duty in A&E or ICU over Christmas, or Paddy's weekend for that matter lol !

billyhead

Its only for kids.

yagan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124042649#Comment_124042649

It was only kids years ago but there wasn't three months of onramping then.

Tippman24

I am ambivilant about christmas at this point. I am retired a few years now and the need to have to put in the appearance at the Christmas do is gone at this point. we had a social committee at work charged with organising the annual xmas outing and everydody opted for the earliest date, basically to get it out of the way (including myself). When my parents were alive, all families descended on that house for the afternoon, but, alas, that time is no more. I think my father hated the noise that the grandchildren made. Their two dogs disappeared under the chairs for a couple of hours. Bottles of Seven Up left open, and doors left open all over the house. I think they were saints to put up with it.

Markus Antonius

"Christmas lovers" are who ruin christmas. This thing of talking about christmas as soon as we hit October makes me want to barf. Would be fine if it was just restricted to December (+6 days of January of course)…

Mam of 4

Love or lathe Christmas, I think quite a lot of people use it as a time to actually spend time together, whether it's on Christmas Day itself, or over the holiday period. I know that's what we do, my adult children and the grandchildren, and extended family , have one day together.

And before I get shot down, I know that's not for everyone either, and that's fine too .

Cyclingtourist

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124043238#Comment_124043238

I'm not going to 'shoot you down' this isn't the Christmas Forum. All view points welcome.