posted
I'm sure you could go to some craft store to find Thanksgiving related decorations. I typically wait until at least after Thanksgiving or to December 1st. But my family has never gone overboard on decorations either. Some lights around the outside of the house, mostly. I've always hated those tacky plastic light up yard decorations.
I think it's funny that people consider Christmas as a Christian holiday any more. For example some companies won't use images of Santa because they think Jews will bitch about the company being pro-Christian and not supporting them or something. Last time I checked, Santa and his reindeer weren't religious figures and there wasn't a Christmas tree in the manger where Jesus was born.
-------------------- I'm slightly annoyed at Hobbes' rather rude decision to be much more attractive than me though. That's just rude. - PsyLiam, Oct 27, 2005.
Registered: May 1999
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Well, yeah, but I bet a quick poll on the streets would show that most people don't know that's where the name/image/whatever comes from.
"Aren't we forgetting the true meaning of Christmas...the birth of Santa?"
quote:Originally posted by Sol System: I decorate my Christmas with broken promises.
Stop being teenagery.
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
Registered: Mar 1999
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quote:Originally posted by Hobbes: Last time I checked, Santa and his reindeer weren't religious figures and there wasn't a Christmas tree in the manger where Jesus was born.
You should check again. The current American version of the story is the result of a mix of Saint Nicholas celebrations and many different older pagan myths. There's Roman, German, Scandivian, Dutch and Christian stuff all over the Christmas story.
posted
But, to be honest, none of that has any significance for the vast majority of people anymore. Santa doesn't equal religious myths and pagan stories. Santa = big fat bloke who brings you presents.
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
But Hobbes' point was that people are scared that anything Christmas-related will be construed as a religious statement. And he tried to back that up with Santa as an example of a Christmas symbol that isn't religious.
Except that, whether people choose to think about it or not, he is.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
A friend of mine used to work for a fencing company and made three razorwire wreaths for out doors. I was in an apartment and the damn thing was too heavy to stay on the nail I hammered in so I had to drag it to the dumpster with a broom handle.
Looked really cool in aTim Burton kinda way though.
This year I plan on repeating my Thanksgiving plans: Work ten hours- take home $400. (Happy Thanksgiving BTW, Flarites!)
Then I go online and blow half of it on Trek models, music and order a pizza.
Probabaly have to field some phone calls from family and the like as well as some "I've been thinking about you" calls from former relationships, relatives and bill collectors.
Percocet will come in handy for all that.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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quote:Originally posted by TSN: Except that, whether people choose to think about it or not, he is.
He was originally, true. But now? In the same way that the majority of people can go through Christmas completely ignoring the religious aspect, I think you can do it with Santa, an icon that has not been directly tied to anything religious for at least half a century, and probably longer.
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
I think the british version is even more puzzling. "Father Christmas" sounds like a deputy to God, he's a Father but not THE Father.
I saw a statue of him once, in an english mall, I think it was Hamley's or Harrod's, he sat on a gigantic throne, dressed in white and blue, I seem to recall he had a crown but I'm not sure.
-------------------- "I'm nigh-invulnerable when I'm blasting!" Mel Gibson, X-Men
Registered: Aug 1999
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posted
I think that Father Christmas used to wear white and blue back in the dim and distant past. For the past 7 billion years though, he's been the same fat bloke with beard in white and red that the US have. I suspect Harrod's (or Hamley's) of trying too hard to be historically clever. Or someitnhg.
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
Registered: Mar 1999
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"In the same way that the majority of people can go through Christmas completely ignoring the religious aspect, I think you can do it with Santa, an icon that has not been directly tied to anything religious for at least half a century, and probably longer."
But that was my point. He didn't say that people ignore the religious aspect. He said that there wasn't one to begin with.
Registered: Mar 1999
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