by Wesley
Home >> So this is Christmas…
“No, it doesn’t,â€? I hear you saying. But it does. Today is the day after Thanksgiving and Sunday is the first Sunday of Advent, how much clearer can it be? Christmas is upon us, whether you’re prepared for it or not. The shopping centres are teeming with shoppers; the hypermarkets have prepared their toy sections with the latest light-up toy pianos, dolls that throw up on you, and camouflaged, 15-centimetre soldiers prepared for battle. The prawns are up to 50€ a kilo. Ah! The glory of the holidays!
Each year, when they see me put up my Christmas tree, little blinking lights and wreath on the door on the fourth Friday in November, I imagine that my neighbours refer to me as the crazy foreigner or something of the likes, but I don’t care. Ever since I can remember, Thanksgiving marks the beginning of the holiday season and as integrated into this society as I may be, Christmas does not begin on the 24th of December. It begins today.
As soon as I leave work, I will run home to the dusty boxes marked “Xmas� and have a fiesta of sneezing as I stick the fake branches into the fake trunk of my fake tree. Then I will proceed to untangle the bunches of lights that I so delicately put away last year so that they would be easy to unravel this year (I am convinced that there are little Grinch gnomes that go into my storage space and snarl up my Christmas lights in August). Then, of course, I will plug them in to see if they work and they will undoubtedly not (those same little gnomes also steal, or even worse, just slightly loosen a few bulbs so that not one of the lights in the strand actually light up). So then I will try to solve that problem and proceed to decorate the tree with what seem to be way too many decorations for one metre-and-a-half tree (as the season goes on, I will inevitably buy more). After this is all finished, I will stand back and admire my work of art.
Then comes the manger scene (crèche, nativity scene, crib…), complete with a handless Virgin Mary and the two Wise Men (apparently Gaspar got lost on the way). Last year I didn’t think it would be appropriate for Jesus to appear until Christmas Day. I found him in the drawer this summer. I think this year he will just have to join the group earlier. It doesn’t make much sense for the entire festive entourage to be standing around staring in awe at an empty space in the middle of the table.
This is all very nice but the most wonderful part of Christmas are the carols, not “Los Peces en el RÃoâ€? and “La Mari Morena,â€? but “Hark! The Herald Angels Singâ€? and “Joy to the World.â€? Today is the day when I begin my carolling campaign. In the car, at home, at work…you can’t escape so don’t even try! Today begins the most wonderful time of the year.
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Posted on http://www.weeklyletter.com at 2005-11-24 13:00:00 +0100
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I think today the Christmas season is too long, because we are living since almost middle of November because the decoration is on the streets and the shopping centres and on TV there are the advertisement about toys, to 6th of January.
If you aren’t religious, I think that Christmas season are party’s days for enjoy with the family and friends and the gifts. It’s the moment to take holidays and to go to snow place for example to play skiing or maybe it’s the moment to escape of the cold weather and to go to take a bath to the beach.
I usually decorate my house for Christmas, I put up the Chritmas tree and I decorate it with little blinking lights, small balls, small figures and another adornment. The tree I put up the last weekwend before 24th of December.
Before, when I was a small boy, every year in my home the decoration was with de Chrismas tree and the “Belén”, but it was too much work it put up it and punt down it.
The song’s title I think is “Happy Christmas (War is Over)”.
I used to like Christmas when I was young, because it was time for meetings with my family, and for presents too. But now I think we have lost the “Christmas spirit”. Even you don’t believe in any religion, you see that Economy is behind everything. The more you buy, the more you love your family and friends. I don’t believe so. Share your time with them, specially this time.
By the other hand, it’s a horrible time for a lot of people. Imagine a person who has lost a son or a daughter, a father, a relative; a person who feels alone…Do you think all you have to do to feel fine is to buy?.
Now I’m trying to recover these days. Meeting with my relatives, sometimes using these special symbols like the tree. I’d like my daughter to understand the real meaning of these days. Forget the presents, share your time with the people you love.
Well the only thing that I like about Christmas is the fact that you can take some days off from work. My ideal Christmas is a two-week holiday to go far away and escape from friend and family reunions. I’m an anti-social introvert. So what?
Everything is horrible at Christmas,
Look at the decorations! Red, green and gold. That is a nauseating combination of colours.
And the music! It’s hideous. It’s all sweet and sugary.
New Year is a different matter though. I like saying goodbye to the old and saying hello to the new. New Year’s Eve gives me a sense of rebirth, of hope.
Chritsmas just makes me sad at the profound superficiality of mankind.
Red, gold and green? I’m a man without conviction, I’m a man who doesn’t know… how to sell a contradiction. You come and go, you come and go.
Sir, superficiality can be seen year-round. Those who are superficial at Christmas are the ones who are superficial every other day of the year. I happen to like red and green (hemengo koloreak, aizu!) and as far as the commericality (is that a word?) and presents are concerned, there I must give you the benefit of the doubt…
As far as Miss Scrooge is concerned, I am not Mr. Social, either. I’d just as soon not have to deal with anyone during the holidays or any other time of year. But it’s the idea that I like, that concept of good tidings of great cookies which shall be to all people. If family dinners result, well, we can all use a bit of overeating every once in a while.
Merry Christmas, indeed!
The best Christmas present that I’ve received was my first computer, I was about nineteen years old. And the worse present that I’ve received was a coal coat. This was because my sister, who is twelve years older than me wanted to joke and she thought it could be funny if she hided the presents and put under the tree only the coal. I was six years old so, as soon as I saw the coal, I started crying. Inmeditely my sister gave me a letter, who she had written but she told me that the letter was from Magical kinds. In the letter, the “Magical kinds” asked me to look for the presents in the living room.
I like decorate my house but only with small details: a small tree, a small sock, a small snowman and a small Belen. This is because it supposes less effort to put in and the to put down.
Dear Virginia,
What a mean older sister, playing jokes on you like that!
The best present that Santa Claus ever gave me was a sledge (un trineo). I was a five-year-old girl living in New York. I remember wondering what the present was. It was very big! When I opened it, I was very, very happy. The next day, my mother took me to Central Park, where I had a wonderful time sledging down its hills!
At that time, I still truly believed in Santa Claus. But, some weeks after Christmas, I started suspecting that he wasn’t real, or, at least, that it wasn’t he who had given me the sledge. Why so? Because my mother took me to the apartment of a friend of hers. At the apartment, I spotted the exact same wrapping paper that had wrapped my sledge, and I noticed that the friend’s handwriting looked an awful lot like Santa Claus’s. But I decided to give my mother and her friend the benefit of the doubt, so I still believed in Santa Claus a couple of years more.
Paola