If you are Christian, how do you feel about the commercialization of Christmas? Do you celebrate it at all? If you're Jewish, do you feel (like many people I know) that Chanukah has been artificially elevated in order to compete with Christmas? Do you celebrate solstice? Or do you belong to one of the many religions with no winter holy day, and does that make you feel left out or discriminated against?

Personally, I wish we had some purely secular seasonal holidays just because I happen to think that seasonal community celebrations are a good thing. I like it when communities get together for happy reasons. I also like tacky tinsel decorations and lots of cookies, neither of which has anything to do with religion. How do you feel about the idea of secular holidays?

-- Anonymous, December 05, 1999

Answers

Can I say something about theme pubs instead? (Sorry to be crass!) Just to let you know that we have a multitude of Irish theme pubs in Britain (despite having pubs that are owned by real Irish people) and they are called things like 'O'Neill's' and 'O'Hagan's' and are decorated in a way that is supposed to suggest 'Irishness'. Most bizarre.

-- Anonymous, December 06, 1999

Oooooh, this is a good one! Ever heard of the Dutch holiday called 'Sinterklaas'? I suppose not - anyway, we celebrate it on december 5 and it involves giving presents to family members and friends. We don't do that on Christmas. In fact, the Santa Claus character was actually based on our Sinterklaas, who is a historical figure - an Italian bisshop from the early middle ages, if I remember correctly.

Anyway, the presents aren't really what this holiday is about - it's what you do with them. If you want to do it properly, you're supposed to turn them into 'surprises' and write poems to go along with them. The receiver of the gift then has to read that poem aloud before opening the present. Needless to say, although it is in essence a children's holiday, for adults it's the perfect occasion to poke fun at each other!

-- Anonymous, December 06, 1999

Oh, I love the Dutch holiday. But then, I tend to love anything Dutch. ;-)

-- Anonymous, December 06, 1999

I'm not very devout anymore, but I hate the commercialization of Christmas for interfering with the other aspects of the holiday -- like visiting people, caroling and even sending cards. So much time gets eaten up with shopping that the other activities are shoved into a corner.

-- Anonymous, December 06, 1999

I'm an actual Pagan so the Solstice is a religious holiday for me.

I have mixed feelings about the whole season - I don't like Christmas, the commercialization and the obligation ("So have you got your shopping done yet?") The holly jolly "it's for the children!" dancing snowmen stuff. And Santa Claus, the big dad who decides if you've been naughty or nice.

But I also think that there's something about humans that makes us need a celebration in the midst of winter, where we get together and light lights and eat and celebrate the fact that we turned the corner, and the days will start getting a little longer again. The part of Christmas I like is that some people do try to act kinder and nicer and give money to charity and cut each other slack because of the season.

When I can, I do Pagan stuff with people on the 21st, but I don't always have contacts for this sort of thing. Holiday parties fill the gap, a little.

I had vowed that we would never have Christmas lights - so suburban! so middle class! Yet I kind of like driving around our valley and seeing houses lit up. They look happy. A celebration of lights, I guess. I can relate to that.

About theme bars: I think they're weird too. Just be an honest pub without all the "old" books, okay? My husband has a great humorous guide to bars that refers to this type as "Six Flags Over Bar" Bars.

-- Anonymous, December 06, 1999

Sorry, this has nothing to do with the holidays. On your front page you mention the article on how to turn any man into a slave. When my parents were dating, my father was teaching high school math and my mother was in college. For one of her psychology classes, instead of doing a boring old report, she arranged to do a little experiment. Noticing that my father had a habit of linking his fingers together and holding them behind his head, she train him like a Pavlovian dog! Whenever he held his hands behind his head this way she payed him all sorts of attention. When he didn't, she ignored him. It worked, and whenever she was around his hands stayed behind his head. He wasn't very pleased when he read her report and realized what she had done, but I guess he got over it. Oh, she got an A.

-- Anonymous, December 06, 1999

I have a love/hate relationship with Christmas. I love getting stuff for other people and I consider it an excuse to do all those nice things for friends and family that you haven't felt you could excuse otherwise without making them feel beholden to you.

I love church ceremonies in the Episcopal church because they are so full of pagentry. It's hard not to get enthralled with all of the ceremony and candles and a sense of hushed anticipation. I like the stories. It's kind of like the same way you liked the same story over and over when you were a kid; the repetition gives you a sense of security and at the same time you relive how it makes you feel.

I like a community get-together far more than a family get-together. Family holiday get-togethers for me are excrutiatingly painful torture sessions which detract entirely from the whole idea of peace on earth and love towards others. By the end of the thing, you're contemplating which trunk you could stuff your in-laws' corpses in, as you're politely shoving them out the door and wishing them a Merry Christmas.

I frankly think that quiet holidays with dear friends and kids is the way for me. I love watching the wonder that my son brings to the holiday. I love hanging out with friends and just hanging out. I think that I stress out too much when I have the added extra of contending with family, and I enjoy them a lot more when there isn't a holiday.

-- Anonymous, December 06, 1999

Speaking as a Christian---I figure that any holiday, overcommercialized or not, that makes kids smile, can't be all bad. Oh, yeah, I know Jesus wasn't born then...that shepherds wouldn't be in the field in Israel at that time of year, etc. It's the same way I feel about Halloween...if it makes kids happy, it's a good thing.

Al of Nova Notes, who nevertheless is not feeling much in the holiday spirit right now...in fact, I fear Thanksgivings and the few days after will always depress me a bit now, since that's when Jamie died.

-- Anonymous, December 06, 1999

Being Jewish ... sure, Chanukah has been artificially elevated (although I think it's to coexist with Christmas ... there's not enough of us to have it serve as any sort of competition :)). I think the whole season has become a secular celebration, which is fine by me. It's an excuse for family and friends to get together, exchange presents and good wishes, and just take a break from the 9-to-5 existence to really enjoy one another's company.

Wow, that may well be the sappiest thing I've ever written. See, Chanukah Harry, I've been really good!

I could, however, do without the Ricky Martin/Celine Dion/Gloria Estefan specials.

-- Anonymous, December 06, 1999

Christmas? Terribly commercialized. I can't deal with feeling that I have to give someone a gift on day X because they are givinging me one. Of course what is given isn't a True gift.

A true gift is one that was found in life that inspired the giver to think "Gee, Paul would appreciate that, it would be nice to give him." and Do It! Most people think it strange to recieve a gift for no reason so when they see something that would be nice for someone they pass it by, finding themselves "needing" to get something in a Christmas rush for that person.

Of course "equity" is expected to be maintained and giving one person a gift at Christmas necesitates getting something for all.

Seasonal Holidays are fun as long as the gifts are left at home.

-- Anonymous, December 07, 1999

i think the holiday season is very commercial. but i don't mind so much and like it anyway. i especially like the repeated showings of "the bishop's wife," which i think might be the best holiday movie of all time.

what i really wanted to say, though, is i just realized that i imagine xeney to look exactly like tracey thorn, the lead singer of "everything but the girl."

-- Anonymous, December 08, 1999

I came up with a theory the other day that the reason I don't get too into Christmas/Solstice is climate. In a region that doesn't really die over the winter, it is hard to get too involved with the cycles of the seasons, you know? A holiday originating from the need to reassure yourself that the world will come back to life, while the daffodils are already blooming... But that changes, I guess, in years when it isn't bright and sunny through December.

I always preferred Halloween. But then, that might be a religious thing. Halloween is more blatently pagan, while Christmas is, to me, a purely commercial holiday (since Yule is a few days earlier). And I don't like the commercial part. I agree with the earlier post about 'true gifts'. Of course, if I had a pagan community around me, I might feel different.

I love those 'icicle' style lights- they seem to be on almost every house that put up lights this year. And for good reason.

-- Anonymous, December 09, 1999

Now see, that's the weird thing; I live in Sacramento, too, and around the time of the winter solstice, I still get weird and sentimental about the world coming back to life again. Daffodils or no. But maybe that's because I'm just a gardener, not a real pagan. There's something about crocuses coming up while leaves are still falling from the trees that makes me want to celebrate.

-- Anonymous, December 09, 1999

Yeah, I like the celebration part... I think I just have a hard time getting into the snow-centric classic American Christmas. And then the whole regeneration thing is something I tend to focus on more in February or so, after the winter has actually happened... Maybe we just have winter too late here. And then I have a hard time planning to do anything due to the proximity of finals to the holidays.

Of course, I'm spending all this time online instead of tackling the mound of schoolwork, so it's not a good excuse at all, it is?

-- Anonymous, December 10, 1999

The "snow-centric classic American" thing is another thing I don't like about Christmas. I hate being cold, I hate snow. We don't even have snow around here except about 1/8 inch every 20 years or so, so it seems weird that the symbol for Christmas is still fake snow on the windows and snowmen made out of plywood. I can't believe everyone is feeling nostalgia for the snowy place where they grew up. I'm a native of Southern California so I have no snowy place to feel nostalgia about. Thank god.

-- Anonymous, December 13, 1999