ectoplasmicz said:
I want to know if i'm the only person alive that isn't particularly interested in Christmas.
The media coverage it gets is appaling (at least here in Australia), with a number of terrible christmas specials being played on TV. All of this is extremely off-putting.
The thing that disgusts annoys me the most is the spoilt children. A lot of these kids get a ridiculous number of presents, when neither them or their families understand what christmas is actaully about. It all just seems like another excuse to receive gifts, and another excuse of a holiday.
I'm not saying we should get rid of Christmas once and for all, i just don't like what it has become, and it just doesn't excite or interest me at all.
So am i the only one feeling this way?
EDIT: what im saying is that it seems to be too much about the gifts now. and the media ruin it.
I know other people think the way you do. I can't say I do, but still.
Christmas saturation is no different in the states than it is in Australia. Christmas music fills the radio the day after Thanksgiving here, which is the last Friday of every November. Christmas specials fill the air all the time, with some specials being put on 24 hour loops throughout Christmas day. The commercialism is rampant, with people often getting trampled and beaten up in stores trying to fight crowds to get popular toys and other stuff on sale. The little nieces and nephews and cousins in my family are given a mountain of presents to unwrap, which they do at the speed of a starved hyena. It's a ridiculous holiday, but I still love the hell out of it.
To me, Christmas is both about the gifts and the time together as a family. I've always loved getting oddball gifts for my friends and family. I've been brought up to be generous, and Christmas lets me go nuts with it.
At the same time, Christmas remains the one time of year when my family, strewn across the country, comes back to my grandparents' tiny old house to visit, eat some great food and get drunk and play card games. I love seeing them all, and by proxy the holiday that makes it possible.
I'm not really sure the "True Meaning of Christmas" necessarily applies to the holiday anymore. I know that it is primarily to celebrate the birth of Jesus, but the holiday has become so secular that non-Christians still celebrate the holiday all the same. My parents, who are proud Buddhists (Don't ask) as well as my proclaimed atheist aunt and uncle all take Christmas with the same amount of bravado that anyone else does. Hell, even the Japanese celebrate the holiday, with less than one percent of their population being Christian...
For whatever reason, you don't like Christmas. That's fine by me, everyone can't enjoy everything. If I may say, perhaps try looking past the commercial and overexposed TV aspects of it, and take it for what it is, a holiday where you can spend time with family and maybe give something nice to someone special. A saccharin-sweet mentality to be sure, but not a bad one.