I hate the pressure to buy gifts and cards at holidays such as these, especially when you are low, or in my case, no income. Luckily most people abandoned me so I haven’t really got anyone to buy anything for although I expect I’ll have to get my landlady a card. Still, it’s like the ultimate symbol of capitalism IMO, buying pointless nonsense that will go in the bin just because it’s a certain date and there’s social pressure to do so. I really feel for low income parents who have kids who want expensive crap and will be bullied at school if they don’t get it. The entire thing is insanity and makes people’s lives miserable just for corporate greed.
Christmas just feels like souless capitalistic consumerism. My relationship with it is pretty complicated due to growing up in poverty and how it has shaped my feelings on getting things. I don’t think it’s overrated though, i just think people think more people liek christmas than they do cause saying you don’t like christmas in public is socially unacceptable. A good amount of people hate christmas cause they find it very stressful.
I kinda like Christmas, even though I’m an atheist. I just don’t understand why some people go crazy about New Year’s though.
Fun fact: nearly every christmas decoration in the world in now produced in Yiwu, China.
looks like the war on christmas was won by the woke…/s
We really should spread this more in USA: “By celebrating christmas you are supporting ebil chyna gommulist CCP!!!”
no that’s just gonna make a resurgent protestant-turned-tradcath tradition of making your own decorations out of native bones or some shit.
Hitlermas
I love the aesthetics and ambiance of Christmas. Warm colorful lights and decorations. The festive feeling and using reefs and such to bring color to an otherwise horribly gray and depressing season.
I HATE all the obsession with gift giving and shopping and buying. Basically, the way capitalism wormed its way into it.
Essentially, I like all the parts of Christmas that were basically stolen from other religions. I hate the aspects from Christianity, which were the easiest to use to inject capitalism into it (presents).
I think it should just be about bringing warmth and color to an otherwise cold and drab season. Where I’m from, there’s more deciduous trees than coniferous so all the trees loose their leaves. The sky is most overcast. With nothing but bare, dead looking trees and overcast sky, everything becomes gray and depressing. Due to the angle of the sun it’s like, daytime is “perpetually 10 am untill all of a sudden it’s 3pm. Then you get off work and by the time you are home it’s night.”
Christmas lights and such combat that drab depression. I just wish the holiday was more about JUST being with friends and family and bringing some cheer and warmth. Instead of all the shopping and “literally kill someone for the last TV on black Friday” type shit. Fuck presents. It’s too much of a focus when it SHOULD be like, a minor side thing. Little fun stuff not the main focus.
Reciprocal gifting feels so hollow when every gift has a price tag.
Right? Like “We just exchanged piles of money but instead of picking out something myself you had to figure out what I might want and then get me that?”
Like most of the time now it turns into “just send the family your Amazon wish list of shit you want to get yourself but feel guilty spending money on.”
I love the aesthetics and ambiance of Christmas. Warm colorful lights and decorations. The festive feeling and using reefs and such to bring color to an otherwise horribly gray and depressing season.
My city in the past few years started leaving lights up in the main park through February. Like they’d take down the Jesus/Santa stuff after the 25th, but leave the basic light strings up. Their reasoning is to keep a festive atmosphere during the drab winter.
I’m conflicted about Christmas.
I love the idea of Christmas, that is a midwinter festival that involves community, family, food, and colourful lights to brighten up those long December nights. I love that it has the power to bring people together even in the darkest of times (I learned about the Christmas truce of WW1 at a very impressionable age). I love giving someone a thoughtful gift and seeing them light up with joy. I’m even a sucker for going to church and singing Christmas hymns and reading the story of Christ’s birth even though I’m not religious.
I detest that it is an orgy of consumerism. I detest that it’s just another empty vessel to sell crap. I detest that for two months there’s never ending pressure to buy this or that, the advertising pressure that it’s not Christmas without buying a bunch of garbage that nobody cares about.
I still come out on the side of loving Christmas but it’s in spite of its modern incarnation, not because of it. I absolutely understand people who hate Christmas, it’s been hollowed out and transformed into just another capitalist festival of consumption
Some retail businesses make almost all of their sales in the Christmas season. With how harsh the long recession has been, I think this year is going to be especially pushy and consumeristic and despite all that advertising the money is just not there to buy. One big sigh and waste
I worked in retail so you can probably guess my opinion on Christmas.
Are there any good holidays in the U.S?
It all seems like the same day of consumption with a different outfit on depending on the time of year
This is true to some extent but some (Easter, St. Patrick’s Day, Thanksgiving) have less of a consumer culture around them than others (4th of July, Christmas, Halloween).
Fittingly the biggest holiday without any real consumer culture around it is Labor Day. The worst you’ll get is marketing for Labor Day sales but that’s pretty tame by U.S. standards.
easter definitley has about the same amount of consumer culture as halloween. st patricks day and 4th of july are comparable imo.
suburban winter sucks, holiday music sucks, consumerism sucks
lots of things to dislike about how christmas is without earning a visit from three ghosts.
I work in a grocery store, so I’m assaulted by Christmas music for a whole month straight. That already puts me at odds with the season, and add into that seasonal depression and not being remotely Christian, Christmas just means less than nothing to me, really.
so I’m assaulted by Christmas music for a whole month straight.
I’m ready to murder someone after just one evening. o7 to your fortitute.
Halloween is the only good holiday, at least of the ones we celebrate in America
This was discussed just the other day in a different forum I follow. lol. Halloween is like, the ONE thing I would say was worth keeping from America. Because it’s just fun. Dressing up in costumes and having parties and such. There’s really no age range that can’t enjoy that. I LOVE dressing up and giving out candy.
No you’re not the only one, I high-key hate it
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Kinda different but same topic: I love Halloween. In the country I live it’s seen as the most consumerist holiday, focused around selling themed snacks and cheap decoration and kids going around collecting those snacks. Also tacky costume parties. Also it’s seen as very american.
I hate all those things but ironically it’s my favourite: First think autumn is beautiful and having a holiday with spooky-cozy vibes is great. I guess as an autistic trans person I also feel connected to monsters, or people being perceived as such. Dressing up also is an excuse to roleplay openly lol.
Christmas can be nice if you have family you enjoy having the chance to meet. I have friends who have or had to meet their abusers this way every year, so I can understand why someone would hate it. Generally it’s best practice to substract the consumerism and capitalist hegemonic culture from a holiday and keep only the things of actual value. If that leaves nothing, ignore it best as possible.
"These holidays are actually pretty great, it’s capitalism that ruins everything. " Is basically the gist of both holidays. The difference is that Halloween, isn’t nearly as capitalism infected as Christmas. Other than decorations and costumes, spending on candy is no where near what it is for Christmas presents. And making a good costume doesn’t even have to be expensive. The worst part about it is the candy and stuff but even that is part of the fun because kids love going around and getting treats and stuff. And I LOVE giving out candy and seeing all the kids in costumes.
Also, dressing up in costumes is awesome. I love it. It’s so much fun. I feel it would pretty easy to convert it to a less consumer minded holiday.
The difference is that Halloween, isn’t nearly as capitalism infected as Christmas
Depend where. In USA, maybe, but in Poland it’s the christmas that is still resisting while Halloween is 100% cultural hegemony enchroachment and seems to be celebrated mostly by americanized people and retail shops.
Still, i would take it over the incredibly sad and drab Polish All Saints Day since it’s just distilled boredom and sadness, why even other catholic countries like Mexico can have it fun and we are left without even the medieval danse macabre, just the feeling of doom and feeding money to priests.
The difference is that Halloween, isn’t nearly as capitalism infected as Christmas.
Debatable.
Here Halloween is a cultural import from the US promoted by stores copying the aesthetics from American TV shows. There is a holiday with a different name on the same day that shares a common root with Halloween that got completely replaced by Halloween. And this only happened over the last few decades.
Disagree on the debatable. I don’t think it’s debatable at all. All you have to do is look at how short the marketing time is for Halloween VS Christmas. Halloween marketing doesn’t really kick up until October and you don’t really see many people doing decorations anymore. Meanwhile, stores start marketing for Christmas before Halloween is even over. People turn black Friday into its own little shopping holiday. I know people that spend part of their Thanksgiving day, planning their Black Friday. Halloween has become and afterthought as Christmas consumerism has already devoured Thanksgiving.
How christmasy is black friday really? As you’ve said it’s more of its own little shipping holiday.
Decoration is not inherently consumerism.
Because it exists entirely because of Christmas. Christmas consumerism MADE Black Friday. Without Christmas, there is no Black Friday. It exists solely to feed the consumerism of Christmas… One could say, If Christmas was America, Black Friday is Israel.
i thought black friday was a yankee thanksgiving thing? it’s a very recent import to my country and we’ve had christmas forever
It was started as just a “BIG CHRISTMAS SALES” day many years ago. It was dubbed “Black Friday” because more and more businesses made a profit on that day this their accounting would all be in “black” ink instead of red which indicated a loss. As things progressed it turned into pretty much all businesses doing some kind of big sales events on that day. It’s almost entirely due to Christmas purchases but people now delay buying some stuff during the year to then go buy it on BF thinking they will get a better deal. When in reality the merchants know this and raise the prices beforehand so they can then say everything is on sale when really it might only be slightly cheaper if at, from the normal price.
It’s supposed to be the day that retailers are pushed over the financial red line back into black ink, but I don’t think anyone is
believingbuying that for a few decades, now.
They would have found another reason.
No they wouldn’t lol. Black Friday “deals” and “sales” literally came about as Christmas sales and deals. They just eventually gave it a name because all the stores started doing their Christmas sales on the same day. No other holiday has such rampant consumerism that sales for that holiday creates its own mini holiday. Hell there’s even “Cyber Monday” now for online sales after Black Friday in store sales. Both exist specifically for Christmas sales.
I feel like Christmas just drags on forever. There are so many celebrations that I can’t miss without upsetting someone.
Multiple family celebrations with family members that get close to a panic attack when something isn’t perfect.
Mandatory fun times at the company.
Friends inviting to get-togethers that I would like to join but often not have the time or energy left and saying no and making excuses is draining too.
All of that during flu season.
