Does anyone else really hate this time of year ?

Jeannie I can’t help but ask why you are with this man. You are only 62 - you have years ahead of you and so migh5 he.

I can’t think of one good reason why Christmas should be only a religious festival for Christians. What on earth? It can be whatever anyone wants it to be. No one owns it and no one in the UK is prevented from celebrating or not however they want ( as long as it’s lawful). Like others on this thread,I am perfectly capable of screening out any commercial aspects and am certainly never pressured into buying anything. What I particularly like about Christmas and the Christmas period is the pause it gives from everyday life to stop and think and remember and consider others. Not that this should just happen then of course but life sometimes gets in the way of being perfect ?. A chance to say thank you with a gift/card. I find it perfectly possible not to wear a hair shirt regarding enjoying myself with good food and drink. For those of you facing your first Christmas without a loved one, I hope there will be some joy with the sorrow.

I am more anoyed by the comercialised jollity than Christmas itself.
However you interpret the Christmas story from some 2000 ago there was philosopher, teacher, call him a Buddhist or Hindu etc etc who was trying to pass on wisdom of peace and preaching this philosophy as away to live.
Don't worry about the myths and imagery, they are the way things were taught then. This philosphy of a way of living Is still relevant.

You can have someone in your life and still be lonely at Christmas as I am

I would love Christmas more if my DGC lived here in the UK, and my lovely daughters were here too, to fetch Christmas joy in to my home
Instead I have a man a lot older that me, he is 77 and I am 62 and he moans all the time about Christmas and how much time and money it takes to send presents abroad to the my lovely families in the US and Australia.
It made me cry today, because his moaning is getting me down

Bah humbug me- would rather have a foreign holiday any day! Too much stress, pressure, financial outlay and biting my tongue around certain family members to kick back and enjoy - and it always seems to be me and DH doing the hosting !

I'm totally with lucky girl. Enjoy Christmas in all it's shapes and forms. I've spent it with immediate family, a wider family, strangers and on my own and enjoyed each one in its own special way. Methinks there's no formula required other than a happy heart.

Oh for goodness sake.... forget the WORD Christmas and think of it as ‘a winter festival’ for letting your hair down and spoiling family members.We mostly work bloody hard the rest of the year so please the moaning Minnie’s
there, allow a time when we can eat drink and yes be ‘merry’ . Call it what you want...it’s an excuse to binge. From a devout atheist!

What OP and some others don’t seem to accept is that Christmas is what you make it.
What really saddens me though is that there are those on this thread and elsewhere ( Rolande, anniebach and myself for starters) who have lost loved ones and would have given anything for them still to be around for what you dismiss glibly as
Does anyone else really hate this time of year
Be grateful for what you have got.
Oh and get over yourselves

I detest this time of year every year. If it was a few carols and a nice meal that would be fine but the endless chirpnesss, the fake bonhomie, the EXPENSE of it all. Just all please clear off, have your Christmas away from nevand come back in mid January. I would get the peace and quiet I crave mid winter.

sad to see a bit of bickering going on in the 'season of goodwill' Friday - the oil used for cleaning the feet of Jesus was extremely expensive and used for the anointing of the dead, so was a symbol of his forthcoming death as Anniebach said. We choose to celebrate the birth of Jesus on the 25th December as has been rightly pointed out there was already a pagan festival at that time of year anyway. I do love Christmas but like many on this site get a bit fed up with it starting at the end of October!

It appears to have turned into another marketing opportunity for businesses, along with Halloween.
Christmas is and should be a religious festival for Christians.
May be it would be better to have a Winter festival at the end of January, with no religious overtones at all?

I loathe it all too - it's so over the top now. However I can't stand the Christian stuff either. We always keep our Christmas low key - we make the best of it but most certainly don't go over the top.

The phrases that cause me anger when a lot of people are on the poverty line are ONLY £249.99. SPECIAL PRICE £199.99. etc etc. For some people that amount of money is all they have for Christmas not just one gift. Bah Humbug

I have taken to hand making my own gifts, and now this year have been busy making my own Christmas cards.

I dislike the way it has become a 'holiday' and the emphasis is on spending money whereas goodwill and the meaning of Christmas has now taken a back seat.

I enjoy giving gifts because my thought, care and love has been used in producing them, which gives me pleasure.

mostlyharmless It would be a very long winter without something in the middle. As it is it often feels a long time between Christmas and March.

Some years ago I had a very bad Christmas when I was suffering from depression. So, now I just try to go with the flow and enjoy it. I think that in these later years of our lives we need to try to make the most of every day.

www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?tag=gransnetforum-21&url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=9781509833603 - this book makes it fairly clear that 'commercialisation', over-indulging and sentimental attitudes have always been a big part of what we today call Christmas - the excuse for these activities has never really been important. As has already been pointed out, and I am sure Anniebach is perfectly well aware, December 25th is NOT regarded as the most likely birth date for Jesus based on the Gospels but it suited the Church to merge the festival with what already existed.

I see Christmas as the highlight of the darkest, coldest time of the year. I know that some people can't celebrate because of bereavement, loneliness or family separations, but Christmas is what you make of it.
No one has to buy, buy, buy. You don't have to put up decorations. You can avoid Christmas adverts on TV nowadays by recording the programmes you choose and missing out the adverts.
Our family is constantly trying to reduce the present giving aspect, with charitable donations instead, or very strict price limits for presents to adults.
We still have a good time and it is a good excuse for a big family get together.

Haha that made me laugh Friday

I agree that Christmas starts much too early nowadays, and Christmas is certainly different when your own children grow up, but times change,and I enjoy seeing my children with their children, and enter into the spirit of things because I have grandchildren who are quite young. If you think old, you act old and then you get old....a saying of my dear mum's...so I will be going to midnight mass, donning the Christmas jumper, visiting Santa, but will avoid the bits I don't enjoy.

I like Christmas really, but cant get into the Christmas mood this year, I love carol services etc and even buying and wrapping up presents, but this year we havent put up any decorations and not bought a tree, I feel a bit sad not having done this, but I havent been well, had a virus of some sort and really havent the energy to get involved, I am sure Christmas will be fine without the decorations.

Anniebach Of course you don't need my permission to make jokes. I was responding (in what I thought was a light hearted way) to your comment that you couldn't laugh at atheism. You can if you wish, or not if you wish. As can people about religion or pretty well anything else.
I only 'jumped in' because Friday was being unfairly pilloried.
Let's calm it down now.

The foot washing by the monarch has been replaced by the giving of the Maundy money.

It is perfectly true that this is not the birthday of Jesus. We are not told when this was, but the best guess is end of September/beginning of October. passes etc. [Read the story of the massacre of Glencoe to see the parallel, the chief of the clan McDonald was late because the pass was blocked by snow] The Romans would not have people trolling about the countryside at this time of year, giving them half an excuse to be late registering because of blocked passes Another indication of the fact that it was not in winter is that the shepherds were in the hills tending their sheep. Not at this time of year.

With regard to the wise men, nowhere in the Bible does it say how many, and Jesus must have been at least 18 months old. The only mention of Herod massacring the children is in Matthew's gospel, if this ever happened at all as there is no other historical record of this.

I have never hated Christmas and will enjoy my time with the DC and grown up DGC but it is the arrival of cards that throws me so many people we knew gone, a single name on the card where there have always been two, or a recital of illnesses suffered over the past year its not easy to deal with and brings back times long gone.