The 2021 'Bah Humbug' Christmas thread.. 🎅

[Brandane]

In early December 1988, when I was mourning the recent and very sudden loss of someone very dear to me, I was in a market on a miserable, cold and sleety day. There were Christmas lights up, a brass or silver band was playing carols, and I had on an earpiece and was listening to the radio with half an ear as I browsed Christmas decorations on a market stall.
The news came on and it was announced that some number - 22, I think - young women working in a Christmas decoration factory in China had been burnt to death after fire had broken out and the fire escape doors to the room or floor in which they worked, had been chained closed. I turned the box of decorations over and out jumped at me the words 'made in China' I dropped the box as if it had just burnt me.

Since that day, I have disliked Christmas here in the UK. It is all so wrong. If it is to be a religious celebration, why is it so commercialised and at the wrong time of year? Put it at the correct time of year please which is not midwinter then I won't mind so much. If it is meant to be about peace and goodwill and stuff like that, fine, have the goodwill to leave me in peace and stop pestering me to go to some grim hall full fake jollification and people with whom I have nothing in common, to be offered food I heartily dislike or won't eat. Don't try to inveigle me into celebrating it! My Jewish, Muslim, Sikh, Hindu etc compatriots don't try to inveigle me into participating in their religious celebrations, why do the Christian ones insist on doing so?
And above all, if it is a religious celebration associated with the founder of a religion which supposedly celebrates peace and goodwill why the f@ck does it need people to be so very exploited that they get burnt to death in the production of bl00dy tinsel and plastic reindeer?

If we are to enjoy a mid-winter/winter solstice/coming of the light/New Year celebration - as was the older (pre-Christian) customs in these islands - with a mish-mash of lights, feasting and greenery at the darkest, hardest, slowest (in subsistence agriculture) time of the year, let's remove religion from it entirely and stop pretending. Perhaps we could start being honest and could call it the winter celebration of over-consumption...

However, it seems to me that it is ripe for a conversion into a celebration of a very different nature - in fact of nature itself in the widest possible sense - and that adapting modern technology to illuminate one of the few bits of accessible remaining greenery at this time of the year is a worthy thing to do (as long as people tidy the lights away after a few weeks) in the spirit of our pagan ancestors persuasion of the light to return, and the year to begin afresh. So I'd give a big tick to the wayside evergreens decorated with solar-powered fairy lights, in fact that's just given me an idea!

So much more eloquently put than my "f*ck Christmas it's sh*te" effort!

 

[SpokeyDokey]

Buck up you miserable buggers and get on the happy curve - life's too short.

 

[Brandane]

Buck up you miserable buggers and get on the happy curve - life's too short.

I AM happy with not liking Christmas!

 

[classic33]

Buck up you miserable buggers and get on the happy curve - life's too short.

Some of the better Christmas's, as an adult, have been where there has been very little pressure to "enjoy the day". These have been on a farm, where the only means of movement was on foot, due to snowfall. Everything got ready the day before, ready to start cooking on the day. Only to find that the power was lost, cooking on the range and an open fire being the only way to do it.

I've "followed the turkey" from the farm it was raised on, to the table. Via plucking, gutting, cleaning and cooking.

The wood and turf in the shed and box by the range. All got ready in the days before.

 

[Julia9054]

I don't mind Christmas. As an amateur musician in a family of musicians, Christmas has always been rushing out to a million concerts which I have grumbled slightly about. I have to say, though, that last year I really missed it.

 

[Drago]

I think was very lucky in the dibble. All those years I recall having only worked 2 x christmas days (as Brandane alludes, mainly domestic prats who don't knowm how to behave, both sexes as it happens). I was down to work a third, possibly 2012 when I was working in the control room, but had full on flu, muscle aches, shivers, the works, and had gone home on the 23rd having stuck it out as long as I could.

 

[Brandane]

All those years I recall having only worked 2 x christmas days

As you will know, public holiday rates of pay were, in days gone by, quite enticing. To save money, it was minimum manning levels on public holidays, but me being single and without children always volunteered to work Christmas day when possible. As per previous post, I saw no point in having the day off anyway, when it fell in the middle of my 7 day roster of shifts and you were working the days on either side. Same with New Year.

 

[Brandane]

Apparently since it is December 1st, it is open season for Christmas songs on my radio station of choice. Currently being subjected to one hour of non stop Christmas songs. To be fair, I quite like some of them (the ones that bring back memories of childhood Christmases) but even then, only the first 5 or 6 times I hear them each year.

 

[Blue Hills]

Come on you can't leave it hanging, what "shower rules"?

old wheels liked your question so will answer, despite a concern about thread derail.
Basically there was a very short time when hot water was available for showers - sometime in the morning.
Somehow I got in in time but I well remember a grown man with family at breakfast very politely asking if he could have a shower and being told NO in no uncertain terms as if he was a cheeky schoolboy. He seemed to flinch/cower under her blast. All very odd. Wasn't in the isle of man, maybe the twin evil sister of @KnittyNorah 's beast.

back to Christmas - and cold showers.

 

[Brandane]

Wasn't in the isle of man, maybe the twin evil sister of @KnittyNorah 's beast.

Was it the Villa Bella in Margate?

 

[KnittyNorah]

Buck up you miserable buggers and get on the happy curve - life's too short.

I am perfectly happy TYVM - however my best Christmasses as an adult have been in countries where Xmas is either celebrated, but scarcely commercialise, or else due to the majority religion of the populace not being Xtian, isn't a 'thing', is actively discouraged or even forbidden; forbidden fruit always tastes the sweetest and of course when Xmas is officially forbidden - and better not show any evidence of it other than in the privacy of one's home or else... - it was all the more fun. I wonder if the undercover merrymakers of Cromwell's time enjoyed themselves as much as we did in Riyadh in the early 1970s?

 

[Blue Hills]

I am perfectly happy TYVM - however my best Christmasses as an adult have been in countries where Xmas is either celebrated, but scarcely commercialise, or else due to the majority religion of the populace not being Xtian, isn't a 'thing', is actively discouraged or even forbidden; forbidden fruit always tastes the sweetest and of course when Xmas is officially forbidden - and better not show any evidence of it other than in the privacy of one's home or else... - it was all the more fun. I wonder if the undercover merrymakers of Cromwell's time enjoyed themselves as much as we did in Riyadh in the early 1970s?

out of interest where were these places where it was "forbidden" knitty, and "forbidden" how exactly?
Still like that in those places?
Stress that I'm not getting at you.

 

[Brandane]

where were these places where it was "forbidden"

I'm not posting my home address on a public forum.....

 

[GilesM]

Christmas is cool just like anytime of the year with a few days off work, all depends how you decide to spend your time, and whether you plan to do whatt you want, or what you think other people want. However, whatever you plan to do, remember this Saturday is Small Business Saturday, so any money you do need to spend, do it in those small shops. It will give you that warm feeling.

 

[Threevok]

As my kids grow up (two are now adults) it seems to get less and less "magical", with each passing year

If it wasn't for the kid who refuses to grow up (AKA Mrs V) I would probably wouldn't bother at all and bugger off somewhere for Xmas