The Bah Humbug Thread

[Dave2002]

I used to love Christmas - certainly when I was a child, and even later. In more recent years I've grown to dislike it more and more, and I think this is because of the stress levels it can induce in myself and others. I'm not particularly religious. I rather dislike the notion that we all have to create a "perfect Christmas" for ouselves and our friends, and TV programmes about how to do this don't help.

Such a lot of the event seems to be about driving commerce, and selling us stuff we don't really need or want, so that we can pass it on to our family and friends.

Sure, I love relaxing, and feeling warm and cosy etc., but someone has to do all the work. Before I retired, despite opinions of others to the contrary, I often worked pretty close up to Christmas Day, which left very little time for everything else. It's a complex issue, but I really wonder if the whole event is made out to be a lot more important than it should be, or need be.

People who are religious make take a different view, but then all the commercial stuff shouldn't really affect them in the same way.

[french frank]

Christmas, for me, is having a good meal with my family - and I wouldn't mind how simple a meal (not that I'm ever the one getting it). Stress is reduced by giving cheques to those under 40 and token presents to older ones who are no longer disappointed by what they get.

I do send religious cards, because otherwise I don't see the point of sending cards at all.

[BBMmk2]

I still love Christmas! I'm like a big kid, more so at this time of year! :)

[pastoralguy]

I've worked EVERY Christmas since 1991 due to my being a nurse so it's really ceased to have any real meaning. However, New Year is much more important since, as a Scot, getting completely rat arsed is so much more important!

[MrGongGong]

To quote mr Byrne

"Same as it ever was"

“If only we had a seasonally appropriate story about Middle Eastern people seeking refuge being turned away by the heartless.”

[Petrushka]

Christmas is exactly what you want it to be yourself, that's the beauty of it. Celebrate it in whatever way you wish or ignore it completely, the choice is yours. Me, I'm with Scrooge's nephew:

"There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say," returned the nephew. "Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round -- apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that -- as a good time: a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!"

[Bryn]

I get the 25th off but will be working from around 2.30 pm on the 26th until around 1.00 am on the 27th. I'll be off for the rest of the 27th and the 28th (a public holiday as Boxing Day falls on a Saturday). Suits me.

[Beef Oven!]

My favourite Christmases were the big family ones we had in the 70s. Loads of wonderful grub, plenty of booze and all your relatives with their guard down! I'd given everyone plenty of warning as to which LPs I wanted as presents, and I really enjoyed getting others unusual presents they really liked, but never thought of! (didn't always work, of course).

For some reason the music was always Shirley Bassey and Tom Jones, with the odd Italian tenor thrown in - then telly, especially the Morecambe and Wise Xmas Special.

Nowadays, it's a pleasant family meal at my parents, and much simpler presents. Regarding presents, it's pretty much as ff says.

Xmas cards are easy, nativity ones for the Christians who believe, and seasons greetings for everyone else.

[teamsaint]

I tend to imagine what the British winter would be without the winter festival.


a bit too long, cold, and damp.

especially if your football team is bang out of form.

I've always been lucky and had a long break at Xmas, so hats off and best wishes to those who have to work, and have little choice.

[Petrushka]

Christmas in our 1960s/70s household was pretty much as Beefy describes it. For some reason the horde of relatives descended on our house. They are all gone now and I live in the very same house so usually raise a toast to them all at Christmastime in fond memory. My mother adored Christmas, despite the enormous workload that it entailed and always gave us children (and later as adults) a magnificent Christmas, possibly because, due to wartime rationing, her own childhood Christmases were so bleak. It remains a mystery how my parents managed to scrape together the money to do it but we never heard a word of complaint.

As I say, they are all gone now but the memories linger and always will. I do what I can to make Christmas special for friends and family and intend to thoroughly enjoy it myself!

[Mary Chambers]

My childhood Christmases were magical, in spite of rationing, wartime and postwar austerity. Feasting, however modest, and presents, however few and small, are doubly valued if they are rare luxuries.

I loved Christmas when I had my own small children, and I loved the numerous but exhausting carol concerts and Messiahs I used to sing in. Then when the children grew up it all became rather less magical, but it is only recently that I've started to feel real disgust at the commercial greed that seems to have taken over. I loathe trying to think of presents for adults almost as much as I hate wrapping them.

And yet, and yet - my small grandchildren's faces when they see the decorations and the tree, and that wonderful moment when the King's College service begins, and the scents of the cooking (now, thank heavens, done by my sons, not me)....and the old magic does return.

[AjAjAjH]

Christmas has always been special. Different traditions at different times in my life. My father was a churchwarden so the Christian part of Christmas was always and still is important.

As a child in the late 40s and early 50s, 19 of us gathered at Grandma and Grandpa's for a huge tea on Christmas Day. My Grandpa was a fine pianist and we sang carols and songs. ( My party piece was 'My Grandfather's clock')

When my father's job changed in the middle 50s, we moved to another part of the country. As a family of 5, away from the rest of the family, we still had a great time and as the years went on nephews and nieces became part of the celebrations.

Then in the 70s a complete change. I was married in 1970 and ordained in1971. We couldn't go to parents or family for Christmas because I was working. So my mum and parents-in-law came to us.

Christmas 1971: Morcambe and Wise and the Grieg Piano Concerto - 5 music lovers helpless with laughter at the first Christmas spent in our own home.

Because I was working on Christmas morning, no Christmas presents were given until after Christmas dinner. The only person who objected was my (now 100 year old) father-in-law who, like the big kid he still is, went on and on about waiting for his presents. Another new tradition, each present was opened in turn so that we could all see what had been given. By the time the family had grown to 5 children plus 2 sons/daughters-in-law and 3 grandchildren, this tradition was taking up most of the afternoon. We still have no presents until after lunch even though I am retired.

And the start of a new tradition this year and for the next few years? This year for the first time in over 40 years, I shall not be presiding at the Midnight or Christmas morning Eucharist. Since I retired, I have been asked to help out somewhere until now. It will be lovely to sit with my wife and some other members of my family at the Midnight Service. Worshipping alongside them as a family instead of being 'up at the front'.

For me and my family, in the words of a popular Christmas song:- 'Its the most wonderful time of the year.' So there's no' Bah Humbug' from me.

[antongould]

..........l
For me and my family, in the words of a popular Christmas song:- 'Its the most wonderful time of the year.' So there's no' Bah Humbug' from me.

....nor from us ......

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Christmas is the time I have to drive 42 miles to the nearest supermarket without piped music. It's Waitrose in either York or Willerby.

[P. G. Tipps]

I truly adore Christmastide ... such a joyful time of year for Christians and for those of other religions and none who just like a good ****-up.

I do hope that Judge Baroness Butler-Sloss does not rule that it should now be abolished.